


The Next Next One

by yourblues



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Career Ending Injuries, Future Fic, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:55:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 71,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22625812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourblues/pseuds/yourblues
Summary: No, Dylan has not picked up a copy of the book, nor does he plan to anytime soon. No, he has not talked to Connor about it. He hasn’t talked to Connor about anything in a long time, but the media does not need to know that.
Relationships: Connor McDavid/Dylan Strome
Comments: 232
Kudos: 643





	The Next Next One

**Author's Note:**

> wanted to write something to celebrate sharing a fandom with one of my loveliest friends again and it got a little out of hand. love u bunches, c. endless thanks also to m for reading along on this journey and providing invaluable feedback and enthusiasm.
> 
> content notes: this work contains description of some fairly brutal injuries and touches on depression/mental health, so please tread carefully if those are tough subjects for you.
> 
> there's also a [soundtrack](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/181yMNFnmdiJmWxlMwqit8?si=E_Sj5sbVRoGfUDEIeE-p5g), if you feel so inclined.

Dylan can’t go anywhere without seeing the book.

Every store he enters, there it is, right up front: New release! Bestseller! The shelves are picked clean, crates of hardcovers stacked conspicuously nearby, as if it’s become too much of a pain in the ass to drag them out from the back room each time the books need restocking. When Dylan walks from his condo building to the grocery store or the rink or the bar, every other window display has it front and center. Dylan wasn’t aware so many shops even sold books. They’re probably all making an exception for _this_ book.

Coming back to Toronto has been good for Dylan in a lot of ways. What self-respecting kid from the GTA wouldn’t be stoked about it? It feels like eons ago that Dylan was able to root for his childhood team without baggage or bitterness, but a spark of those young dreams is still there, a tiny thrill at the sight of that iconic maple leaf on the front of his jersey. Nowadays, the baggage is mostly tied to other teams anyway. And he’s close to home. His parents can come see him play whenever they want. He can go see his parents whenever he wants. He hasn’t been able to do that since he was fifteen years old.

The downside is that the city is exactly as hockey-obsessed as it has always been, which isn’t a downside, really — that all-encompassing fandom made Dylan what he is, and it’s surely still planting the seeds of dreams in other kids every day. But the knowledge that when Dylan fucks up the entire metro area knows it is a downside. The overbearing media is a downside. And the fact that Dylan can’t go anywhere without seeing the damn book.

If he had stayed in Chicago, it would be annoying but not all-encompassing. If he had stayed in Arizona, people might not even know there was a book.

That’s not fair. Dylan liked Arizona. He still thinks of it wistfully, sometimes: the perpetual summer, spending the entire season poolside with his buddies, the luxury of it almost enough to distract from his budding career circling the drain. The bitter cold of Chicago winters had made the trade feel something like returning to his roots, but the real homecoming was the feeling of flying on the ice again. But even then, “home” was only really ever Mississauga or Erie. When free agency rolled around, only one of those places had an NHL team next door.

Anyway, as he has told the increasingly skeptical Toronto press corps for the past three days, he has not picked up a copy of the book, nor does he plan to anytime soon. Not a big reader, he confesses with a shrug, and besides, he probably already knows all the good stories. No, he has not talked to Connor about it. He hasn’t talked to Connor about anything in a long time, but the media doesn’t need to know that.

He told himself when the news broke that he was not going to read it, because one of the things he’s gotten better at over the years is not torturing himself. But his resolve weakens every time he passes a display, his eyes drawn to the cover despite everything.

It’s a familiar picture: Connor, age four or five, soft-focused and knock-kneed, posing dutifully with his stick on the ice in an oversized jersey and full gear sans helmet. _The Next Next One: A Memoir_, by Connor McDavid, his name as big as the title. Dylan catches snatches of conversation from teammates and team staff, talking obtusely around anecdotes and details — “No spoilers in the locker room!” the rookies had demanded the day it came out. The book is everywhere, and everyone is reading it.

Except Dylan.

If Connor has anything to say to Dylan, he can say it to his face, not write it into his memoir somewhere between being born with skates on and quitting hockey forever. People talk about how Connor was such a quiet, humble kid, but Dylan knew him best, and he has always been one of the most dramatic people on the planet. Exhibit A: broken hand, November 2014. Exhibit B: quitting hockey forever. Exhibit C: the fucking book.

“Lookin’ way too serious for a man on a scoring streak,” John says, dropping into Mo’s empty stall next to Dylan. He’s already dressed in jeans and a hoodie, damp hair sticking to his forehead. The cut on his cheekbone from a high stick last week is pink and shiny, the scab starting to curl away from new skin. They finished practice about half an hour ago, and Dylan is procrastinating. It’s been a few months, but his high-rise condo a block from Scotiabank Arena is still lacking in the warmth and comfort department.

“Oh, you know, just.” Dylan gestures vaguely, turning his wrist and wiggling his fingers. “Burdened by the weight of the world.”

“Right, okay.” John rolls his eyes and bumps his shoulder against Dylan’s. “You wanna come over for lunch? When you’re making that face I think I’m contractually obligated to ask if you want to come over for lunch.”

John likes to joke that the only reason he didn’t retire after last season is that he promised Ryan he would stay and keep an eye on Dylan. Because Dylan, nearing 30, definitely still needs his big brother’s friends looking after him, and not because John is incapable of hanging up his skates even after magnanimously handing his C over to Morgan Rielly a season ago. Still, lunch at John’s sounds way better than going back to his empty apartment, so Dylan drags showers quickly so he can follow John’s SUV back to the Tavares house in Oakville.

The kids are at school and Aryne is out with friends, so John makes the two of them sandwiches with leftover roast chicken. He slices tomatoes and pats some lettuce dry while Dylan roots through the fridge for leftover bacon John swears is in there, doesn’t find it, and emerges with two bottles of Molson Canadian instead.

John’s house is nice. It’s modest, but plenty big enough for a family of four. Enough room in the backyard for Jace to practice lacrosse and for Jules to take shots at the shooter tutor without endangering the vinyl siding. Dylan likes it because it feels lived-in, a pile of shoes inside the door, homework left on the table, sweaters and socks strewn around the living room. It’s not quite the chaos Dylan grew up with, with three brothers plus every other boy in Lorne Park, but there’s a similar welcome warmth to the space. It feels like a home.

“So,” John says through a mouthful of sandwich, leaning on the counter with both elbows. “Have you read the book yet?”

Dylan snorts. “Fuck off.”

“I’m serious.” John swallows, takes a swig of beer. As if serious isn’t his default mode. “You’ve earned a little closure, eh?”

Dylan snorts again. John laughs.

“Okay,” he says, shrugging it off. “It’s a pretty good book, though.”

“_You_ read it?” Dylan groans. “I thought you respected my privacy, man.”

“Dylan, please, no one respects your privacy,” says John. “This is Toronto.”

Dylan heaves a sigh that ends in his forehead thumping against the counter. John pats his head, and goes back to his sandwich.

Upon Dylan’s return to the GTA, John went from being Dylan’s brother’s friend to Dylan’s actual friend fairly quickly. Maybe it was the familiarity, or maybe Dylan just gravitated to the steady presence John exudes, in dire need of something to lean on. John is a verified star in Toronto, the kind of person die-hard Torontonians would take a bullet for, but he’s also maybe the most grounded person Dylan has ever known. John made the same choice Dylan did, in a way: his contract ran out and he came home. Just with about a thousand more headlines and some impassioned jersey-burning on Long Island, because what John does actually matters.

Dylan spent his teens and much of his adulthood thus far being a little bit star-struck, no matter how many times Ryan insisted John was boringly normal, but it turns out Ryan was right: John is boringly normal. It’s kind of nice. It makes Dylan want to settle into the city and be boringly normal, himself. Sometimes he even feels like he’s starting to get there.

Sometimes. Just not when his famous ex-best friend unexpectedly publishes a memoir that definitely has stuff about Dylan in it. The number of times Dylan has quashed the urge to ask — but if it was anything truly damning, someone would have brought it up by now. Probably that one reporter from the _Star_ who loves not minding his own business.

An extra nice thing about John as a friend is that he’s been in Toronto for a long time, so he knows every member of the media, and he was glad to give Dylan a run-down of who’s nice and who’s nosy. Also, he doesn’t insist on picking at sore subjects, even if he thinks they should be talked about, and so a minute later the conversation has moved on to better things: this teammate’s new girlfriend, that one’s new bromance, Jace and Jules’ school and sports — John has a thousand pictures to share pertaining to that last one, and Dylan is happy to go through his camera roll with him, oohing and aahing at the correct moments.

An hour later, Dylan drives back to his condo. He parks, gets halfway to the elevator, then turns and walks the several blocks to the supermarket instead. Despite the lack of bacon, John’s well-stocked refrigerator reminded him of how woefully empty his own is. He hasn’t been grocery shopping since the team got back from their last roadtrip days ago, and he has woken up every morning since kicking himself for not having anything good for breakfast. Dylan is not a good grocery shopper — once, years ago, his mom helped him put together an online grocery order that he uses for reference to this day — but he can handle grabbing eggs and yogurt and enough produce to make a smoothie.

The supermarket is a small, boutique-y one that Dylan pops into often enough for snacks that the staff have basically stopped recognizing him as a hockey player. So it’s bemusing, then, how several sets of eyes snap over to him as he heads for the dairy aisle. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t made any recent bonehead plays worthy of widespread public scrutiny. He’s scored some goals, but none nice enough for gawping.

But his on-ice performance is not the reason for the attention. Very, very not the reason. The reason, Dylan learns when he rounds the corner, is standing by the yogurt, reading the back of a large container of Icelandic skyr.

It’s Connor. Standing by the yogurt, reading the back of a large container of Icelandic skyr. Dylan is rooted to the floor. Maybe he makes a noise, or maybe it’s just the feeling of being stared at, but Connor looks up. The entire Earth shifts under Dylan’s feet.

Connor opens his mouth. Closes it, opens it again, and gets as far as “Str—” before Dylan turns and walks out of the store.

Outside, Dylan goes a block in the wrong direction before he can think straight, then loops all the way around by the waterfront so that he doesn’t have to walk in front of the grocery store again. The wind whips off the lake, stinging his eyes. His chest is tight. It’s hard to breathe. It’s only ten minutes to Dylan’s building but the distance feels interminable.

The moment the door closes behind him, Dylan slumps back against it, sliding down until his ass hits the floor. He sucks in one breath, then another one. And another one.

He has thought so much about how he would react to seeing Connor again. Has spent a lot of time picking through the tangled mass of feelings in his chest that belongs exclusively to Connor, even after all this time. He’s fantasized about hugging him and screaming at him. He never thought he would run away.

It takes him a few minutes to get to his feet, and then he moves through the condo feeling dazed, his mind still stuck in the dairy aisle, on Connor’s surprised eyes and cut-off attempt at getting Dylan’s name out. He was thinner than Dylan remembers, his frame less like the NHL player he’s been for the last decade and more like the skinny shoulders Dylan used to rest his head on in Erie. His hair was slightly too long. He needed to shave. He barely looked like the person Dylan knows. Knew. Fuck.

It takes Dylan less than a minute to order the book online. It’ll take two days to get to him, but he doesn’t want to look a cashier in the eye buying it in person, and he can’t get the e-book because he might need to throw it at a wall.

The box with the book sits on Dylan’s kitchen table for three days. When he finally opens it, he can’t deal with pint-sized Connor beaming up at him from the cover, so he turns it face-down and stacks mail on top of it for another week, the middle of which is spent on a short roadtrip to Ottawa where they eke out a win against a team they should have crushed. Dylan plays okay but not great, and spends the flight home scrutinizing game film on his iPad.

Dylan has never been the type of player who has trouble focusing when the outside world is being a distraction. For him, hockey is the distraction for when things get tough. It’s when his life problems and his hockey problems intersect that it becomes an issue: when, no matter how hard he tries, he can tell his coach won’t buy into him, or when the whole country is watching and expecting him to live up to the example of his messianic best friend, even though they think Dylan is half as good. Those are the things that get into his head and fuck with his game. And apparently Connor still counts as a hockey problem.

The Blues are in town on Thursday for a game with zero standings implications for either them or Toronto. It’s a tough match to get fired up about. Dylan’s pregame nap sucks, and he heads to the rink early, hoping that sitting in the stands with his carefully curated pregame playlist for an hour will help him focus.

After Dylan signed with Toronto in the off-season, it took him a while to find his groove. He spent those first few weeks terrified that the city would turn against him and run him right back out of town. Being a local kid has its advantages, though, earning him more goodwill than a lackluster free agency pickup might usually get. The team had been blown up after their last Cup run ended in a bitter Eastern Conference Finals upset two years ago, all but a few core pieces traded for cap space or signing elsewhere for bigger paychecks and brighter prospects.

The Toronto Maple Leafs without Matthews, Marner, or Nylander? It’s a miracle there wasn’t a riot. The bitterness is palpable when people talk about Auston helming a Pacific powerhouse in Arizona, Mitch taking the chip on his shoulder to Pittsburgh, William tearing it up in Washington. It’s hard to tell if the feeling is directed at the players or the team. It’s possible that the fans and pundits don’t know which one it is themselves.

The upshot of it is that now they can’t seem to decide if they’re rebuilding or contending. They are not the Maple Leafs that Dylan was so envious of when he was struggling in the desert, but at least that means it has room for him.

It’s not that he wanted to leave Chicago. It’s more that he didn’t actively want to stay. Alex had been traded to Los Angeles, and the team needed yet another rebuild that Dylan couldn’t see himself as a key piece in. His contract was up, and he had offers, so he took the best one. He came home. He is playing for the team he grew up loving. For a lot of home games, his parents come watch from the lower-bowl seats Dylan bought them, and when Ryan or Matty are in town, they refuse to take sides but make the winner take the family out to dinner afterwards. Tonight, they will not be in attendance, because, “No offense, Dyl, but that match-up sounds boring as hell.” Not that Dylan blames them.

No matter how much Dylan loves the team, the city, the sport, sometimes it’s still hard to get his head in the game. Like when it’s a meaningless weeknight match-up against a Western team and he has a million other things on his mind. He pushes his headphones down and stands, stretching, waving to Frankie the facilities manager doing his customary pregame walkthrough.

Heading back up the tunnel, the familiar voice coming from the locker room had Dylan convinced for a moment that he has gotten so far into his own head about this that he’s hallucinating. But then he rounds the corner and Connor is right there, dutifully taking a selfie with Tanner Whittaker and Kevin Keane. The rookies look like they’re about to burst from excitement. Connor — still skinny and shaggy-haired, but clean-shaven, now — looks, as always, slightly burdened.

“Oops, sorry, one more?” Tanner asks sheepishly, holding his phone out again. In the seconds between selfies, Connor’s eyes flicker over toward the door, and Dylan hurries down the hallway like that’s the direction he was planning on going all along.

So much for focusing. How is he supposed to get ready for the game with his teammates all fawning over Connor McDavid while Dylan is trying to lace up his skates? What the hell is Connor even doing here?

The latter question is answered easily. As Dylan is striding down the corridor with no destination, he narrowly avoids a collision with Annie, the Leafs’ harried-looking PR coordinator, who comes around the corner at full speed and yelps an apology as she dodges around Dylan, clipping his shoulder.

“Is everything okay?” Dylan calls after her. She waves her clipboard in a way that says, ‘no, but give me fifteen minutes and a strong martini and it will be’.

“Lotta people pissed that we didn’t invite them in for extra special press coverage since we’ve got McDavid here for that intermission thing. I gotta go pretend to be sorry.”

And there it is. Someone, somehow, convinced Connor to make a real-life NHL-adjacent appearance. Dylan almost thought it would never happen. He’s curious enough to pry, if word wouldn’t immediately get around that he was prying. Instead, some subtle snooping (i.e. checking the Leafs’ Twitter feed) gets him more details. At first intermission, the Leafs will announce which rows have won the big prize, and at the second intermission those rows will be funnelled through what will have to be the world’s fastest book signing. Apparently there’s also a special interview airing on TSN: Connor McDavid’s first visit to an NHL rink in a year and a half, right here in his hometown, which the entire country will undoubtedly tune in for despite the evening’s lackluster match-up.

By the time Dylan circles back to the locker room, he’s running later than usual for his gameday routine. Connor is gone, but the buzz of his presence remains. The younger guys are eagerly comparing selfies and autographs. On the whiteboard, there’s a sectioned-off list labeled _WRITE YOUR NAME HERE IF YOU WANT A SIGNED MCDAVID BOOK_. Half the team is on it already. Timmy Liljegren shoots Dylan a sheepish look as he finishes scrawling his name at the bottom.

“Stop judging,” says Joe Woll, kicking Dylan’s ankle with a goalie skate. “Not all of us have a personalized copy for every day of the week.”

Dylan makes a face at him. “I don’t have any copies. I told you I haven’t read it yet.”

Joe shrugs. “Well then, stop judging, not all of us lived it. And some of us want a great easy Christmas gift for our niece.”

“Shouldn’t you buy her a book that won’t rot her brains?” Dylan asks, and Joe just laughs.

So much for focusing.

The game is a shitshow. It’s the last one for the Blues at the tail end of a northeast roadtrip and they clearly just want to go home. The Leafs look exactly like the team that struggled against Ottawa, and they can’t even break through Colorado’s half-hearted defense. Usually, Dylan is one of the guys who gets loud, firing up the team and goading the other guys, trying to jump-start something better. Tonight, he’s part of the problem, sending passes to nowhere and tripping over his own feet like he’s sixteen and playing in his first O game. It’s abysmal. McFarland tells him so, but even the coach seems more annoyed by the boring game than upset about the level of play. Both benches groan when it goes to overtime.

“Someone better get out there and score one fuckin’ goal if you boys want to survive practice tomorrow,” McFarland grumps, tapping Kappy, Kev, and Mikko to start the three-on-three. He raps his knuckles on Dylan’s helmet. “Stromer, you take Whits and Sandsy out next.”

Forty-two seconds later, Dylan wins it on a fluke. He goes to pass to Tanner, but his skate blade catches in the ice and he jerks the puck toward the net instead. It ricochets off the defender’s heel and just over Binnington’s left pad. Dylan can’t help himself: he throws both hands up with a whoop as Tanner and Rasmus surround him in a hug. There’s a hint of sarcasm to the celebration, deliberately outsized joy for barely winning a meaningless game on a coin-toss play, and someone somewhere on TV is going to give them grief for not acting like they’re been there before. But there’s genuine relief to it, too. Grinding out a win like that feels much better than letting it slip away.

There are layers to Dylan’s relief: they didn’t lose, and he scored a goal, which partially makes up for how much he sucked for the first sixty minutes of the game. He avoided a confrontation with Connor, and he didn’t lose in front of Connor. He wishes he could have sucked less in front of Connor, but he’ll settle for not losing. If Connor was even watching, and not too busy signing books.

Postgame media is short and sweet, because the game was meaningless and almost nothing happened. Dylan really thinks he’s going to get out of it unscathed until that guy from the _Star_ who’s always nosier than necessary squeezes in at the end to ask, “Was it nice to get the win with your old friend McDavid in the building?”

“Yeah, I’m sure Davo appreciated it,” Dylan says. “Made sure to keep it exciting there at the end for him, eh?”

That earns him some appreciative chuckles, and, thankfully, a reprieve from further questions. The scrum disperses’ Dylan slumps into his stall. There’s still so much to do before he heads home — cool down on the bike, shower, let a trainer poke at the hip that bothers him every other month — and all he wants is to lay on his bed wallowing.

A smelly sock hits him in the face.

“Heads up, superstar,” John deadpans.

“Gross,” Dylan says, wiping his face with the back of his hand. “That’s how you repay the guy who won you a game tonight?”

John is unfazed. “Looked like you needed a pick-me-up.”

“Do you know how human emotions work? Don’t answer that.” Dylan throws the sock back and gets to his feet with a groan. “Wanna hit the bikes?”

“Yeah, be there in a few,” says John, so Dylan jams his feet into his sneakers and shuffles toward the training rooms. There’s a bunch of people hanging out in the hallway, more than a boring inter-conference weeknight game really warrants, but that’s what happens when Connor McDavid shows up. But Dylan has already done his media duty tonight, so—

“Dylan!” A hand lands on Dylan’s arm, tugging him into the throng. “Perfect, let me steal you for just a second?”

Dylan knows Padma from TSN’s social team thanks to some promo spots he’s done. They’re friendly enough that he’s not offended by her kidnapping him, but his desire to not ignite a hot round of fresh gossip is the only reason he doesn’t bolt when he sees the reason for the kidnapping.

Connor looks as awkward as Dylan feels, standing there in his well-fitted charcoal gray suit, blue-striped tie loosened at the collar. His eyes flick from Padma to Dylan, widening like he’s just realizing why she darted away in the first place. His mouth opens, maybe to protest, but nothing comes out.

“Just one picture of the old teammates together,” Padma beams. “Bestselling author and game-winning goal-scorer. Or the people on the internet will riot.”

Dylan takes one deep, fortifying breath.

“Yeah, of course,” he says. Sidles up to Connor and slings an arm around his shoulders. Connor’s hand comes to rest tentatively in the small of his back, sending sparks straight up Dylan’s spine, and Dylan smiles for the photo like he doesn’t think he might throw up.

“Perfect,” Padma says again. “Thanks, guys.”

“Sorry about that,” Connor says once she’s gone. His hands are in his pockets, now, safely away from Dylan. He glances around, gauging who’s watching them. Because of course there are people watching them.

“S’fine.” Dylan jerks his head toward the training rooms. “I should—”

“You wanna get a drink or something?”

The whole of Scotiabank Arena shifts under Dylan. He gropes uselessly for words.

“Uh. Not tonight,” is the best he can come up with.

The way Connor steels himself is painfully familiar. “Maybe another time?”

“I still have the same number, Davo,” Dylan says, sharper than he means to but not nearly as sharply as he feels. “I gotta go. Congrats on the book.”

John is already on a bike by the time Dylan gets there, pedaling away next to Joe and Mikko. He takes out an AirPod when he sees Dylan.

“You okay? You look like you just puked,” he says.

“I might,” Dylan grumps as he hoists himself up. A long cool-down might be good for him tonight.

One thing that hasn’t changed over Dylan’s years in the league — possibly the only thing that hasn’t changed — is the amount of time he spends talking to his older brother. Dylan has a lot of friends he’s stayed in touch with, but just as many that he’s drifted away from. Most summers, he still sees his closest friends from Mississauga, the guys he grew up with, but it’s a different kind of relationship than when they were kids. They’re on the fringes of each other’s social circles now, and Dylan is the only one still based in the GTA. Brandon took a job in Ottawa after university; Nic has a whole contingent of Canadian expats who play in Europe that he spends most of his time with. Summer is no longer the thing that naturally brings them together. It’s just the only chance they have to make it happen.

Dylan still gets dinner with any of the McLeods when he plays them. He has a handful of good friends and a multitude of acquaintances scattered across the NHL, from as far back as minor midget, from Erie, from Arizona and Chicago and camps and tournaments. He’s still super tight with Alex, of course, but he hardly ever sees Mitch or Merks anymore. And then, of course, there’s Connor. He's his own category altogether. But Ryan's place in Dylan's life has never changed.

Ryan has been in Tampa for several years now, enjoying what he calls his twilight hockey years a stone’s throw from the beach. With the Lightning, he finally settled into a solid role after too long spent bouncing around the continent, never quite what other teams wanted him to be. Dylan used to stress about it for him, since Ryan never stressed about it more than was strictly required. Now, his only qualm is that he and Dylan are in the same division, so they have to play each other all the time. Great for their parents; less great for Ryan, who cares too much about Dylan’s success to ever go full throttle against him.

Dylan does not have this problem. He buys Ryan a lot of dinners.

Currently, Ryan is in the kitchen of his house, laptop on the island counter, the newest Strome tucked into the crook of his elbow suckling from a bottle as Ryan video chats with Dylan. Sydney has taken the other kids to a playdate, so Ryan is on baby duty, which, he confides to Dylan, he much prefers to toddler-wrangling anyway.

“That’s because you’re soft as hell,” Dylan tells him, even though he thinks baby duty does look pretty cozy. Chloe has a little Lightning onesie on, half dozing, half drinking as Ryan rocks her idly.

“Language,” Ryan says, but doesn’t mean it, because he follows up with, “Now, sorry, what the hell is up with the Davo thing?”

Dylan sighs, letting his head fall back against the couch cushions. “I don’t know. What am I even supposed to say to him at this point? I don’t know if I even actually want to talk to him.”

“Don’t you want to know what happened?”

“If I really want to know, he wrote a whole book about it.”

Ryan raises his eyebrows. “You still haven’t read the book?”

“Why would I?” Dylan demands, then guiltily lowers his voice when Chloe squirms and whines. “If there’s anything in that book I should know, then he should have told me to my face. Maybe if he had said literally anything to me before disappearing off the face of the Earth, I’d feel more like talking to him now.” He pauses. Narrows his eyes. “Did _you_ read the book?”

“Skimmed it,” Ryan says, looking guilty. “C’mon, Dyl, he was my friend, too. Not like with you, obviously, but I was curious.” Chloe pushes the bottle away, so he sets it down, shifting her to his shoulder. Dylan is fascinated by the way he never stops moving when he’s holding her, always rocking or bouncing, always gentle. She snuggles into his shoulder and he rubs her back in circles, practiced and methodical. Ryan’s always been the softest brother of the three of them, and not that Dylan or Matty have kids to compare with yet, but Dylan is pretty sure even when they do he’ll still be the best dad, too.

“Whatever,” Dylan grumbles. He shifts his laptop so he can flex his knee, drawing it up and digging his thumb into a fading bruise, right where the bones joint together. His chest is tight, the way it gets right before tears well up in his eyes. He does not particularly want to cry right now. “It’s just complicated, you know?”

“You have every right to be mad, but talking might help,” says Ryan. “You don’t want to be hung up on him forever, right?”

“No.”

“Well—”

Chloe burps, loudly and expressively.

“See, exactly,” Ryan says.

Dylan blinks away the wetness in his eyes, grinning despite himself. “Well, I guess I can’t argue with that.”

Three days later, Connor texts: _You ready for that drink yet?_

_i’m in florida_, Dylan texts back, which is not an answer but it is a great excuse to not answer. They just got their asses kicked by the Panthers, and they’re about to catch a flight to Raleigh for the second half of the back-to-back.

Florida trips without enough time for the beach should be against the terms of the CBA. Everyone is grumpy about it.

_K but you’ll be back like tomorrow_, Connor says.

It’s fucking weird. Connor texting him like this is fucking weird. He must know that. The last text from Connor in Dylan’s phone has been a _good luck tonight_ for over a year now. It’s followed with about a dozen, unanswered, from Dylan: _thx u too buddy_ then some worried ones, then some angry ones, then many, many months of silence. An entire season’s worth of nothing. And now Connor is texting about drinks.

_Maybe_, Dylan says, because despite his concession to Ryan, he still doesn’t know what to do with this.

He’s been trying not to think about it. The team this year — it’s good, not great, and even though it’s pretty early in the season they need to stay focused to get back into the playoffs. That means Dylan can’t spend all of November thinking more about his ex-best friend than about winning hockey games. After all this time, he thought he’d be past the way Connor can so easily take up residence in his head like he’s built a house there, but instead he’s just re-learning all the ways he’s not over it. Not at all.

The urgency with which Dylan ordered Connor’s book dissipated about thirty seconds after he hit the buy button, and now his condo just feels haunted. Before they left on this roadtrip, he moved it from under the mail pile to the bookshelf in his living room. It blends in better there.

_Let me know_, Connor says after a lengthy pause, which could just be because he’s busy, but Dylan chooses to think it’s because he’s cowed, just a little bit, by Dylan’s refusal to be exactly what Connor wants him to be.

But of course Dylan caves eventually. When he crawls into bed back in Toronto after the red-eye home, he types blearily: _Tues night. U pick a place. But i have veto power_. Hits send before he passes out so he doesn’t have to think about it for the next eight hours, which backfires when he wakes up with only the faintest memory of sending it.

Connor has replied, _Do you just want to come over? Might be easier than going out_

Dylan reads the text several times.It takes a moment, as he claws his way toward consciousness, to remember that Connor is really and truly in his life again. Kind of. He’s trying to be in Dylan’s life again, and Dylan is deeply unsure about that being okay, but he’s letting it happen anyway because that’s what he does when it comes to Connor. He’s a sucker. Always has been.

Does he want to just come over? It might be easier than going out. Might be easier than wondering if every sideways glance is someone recognizing them, if every person with a phone out is taking a picture for the internet. Might be easier than talking around anything important in case of eavesdropping ears. Maybe Dylan is paranoid, but Connor’s disappearance and subsequent reemergence has made him one of the hottest sightings in Canada. The #WheresConnor hashtag that inspired a summer of photoshopped memes has resurged as Toronto’s favorite social media game, hockey fans from Etobicoke to Scarborough eager to add their hastily-snapped smartphone photos to the collection. It’s a miracle that no one took a picture of their grocery store encounter. Dylan doesn’t relish the idea of being plastered across Twitter for grabbing a beer with the newly risen McJesus.

In junior, fans would line up outside after every game, in every city they played in, for the chance to get Connor’s autograph. Sometimes he would be out there for ages, dutifully signing and letting people snap selfies, unwilling to look selfish or to let the kids waiting in the cold think their dreams didn’t matter. In some ways, it was surreal, but in others, it felt just — correct. Inevitable.

It was different in Erie, where McDavid Mania was localized around the EIA, so getting recognized away from the arena was a little rarer. They used to get a kick out of it, going out to eat after practice or hanging out at the West Erie Plaza, which was the closest thing Erie had to a functional mall where teenagers with free time could blow their cash. It didn’t happen constantly, but Erie is a small town and the Otters were a hot ticket. Kids would run to Connor, an exasperated parent trailing after, or tiptoe up shyly, their adult nudging them along. Often, they recognized Dylan, too. “You know my friend Stromer?” Connor would ask the ones who didn’t, fingers curling in the small of Dylan’s back. “Number nineteen? He’s gonna play in the NHL one day.”

The season after Connor left for the NHL, Dylan was recognized more than before, especially if he and Alex were out together. On generous days, Dylan attributed it to what a distinctive pair they were: Dylan tall and lanky with Connor’s C on his chest, Alex short and solid and proving people wrong, the pair of them dragging the McDavid-less Otters through the season to a championship. But Dylan knew in his heart that it was because it’s easier to see people when they’re not in Connor’s shadow, and because the good people of Erie, Pennsylvania, loved Dylan more when he was filling the hole that Connor left. He loves them back, still, for the same reason.

At some point the attention started making Connor shrink in on himself. Dylan felt like a bad friend, when he noticed, for not noticing sooner.

_Sure_, he says.

When they land in Toronto, Dylan has a voicemail from Alex detailing a long and involved grievance with the California DMV. Alex had been holding off changing his license from Illinois, having spent the last two off-seasons in Chicago despite the trade, but he and Lyndsey are house-hunting down there for a real house, a settling-down house, so now is the time for the big switch. Alex is apparently unhappy with his experience. Dylan listens to the grumpy message, happy to hear his friend’s voice, and tries to call back but gets voicemail. He leaves his own message, much shorter, and promises to text Alex later.

When Alex was traded to Los Angeles from Chicago, Dylan cried, first in Alex’s apartment, then in the press scrum when the _Chicago Sun_ guy opened with a question about it, and then in private off and on for the next month when he felt too lonely to function. It’s not like he didn’t have other friends in Chicago. He had plenty, from close buddies to acquaintances, but no one knows him like Alex, except maybe his big brother.

And Connor, of course. Once upon a time.

Dylan and Alex haven’t been great at phone calls this season, always just missing each other, and they’ve tried to make up for that with excessive texting and Snapping and sharing Instagram posts with cute dogs. It’s not the same, but it’s getting Dylan through. He should tell Alex about the Connor stuff, but he’s not sure exactly what to say about it.

They have the day off, so Dylan drives the half-hour to see his parents in the suburbs. He tries to make it out there at least once every couple weeks, even if it’s just for an hour, even if he’s going to see them at games. There’s something grounding about being able to go to the old house whenever he wants. It’s like wrapping himself in the feeling of home to take with him back into the city.

“Judi was over here a couple days ago to watch our Matt play their Matt,” Dylan’s mom says as she chops zucchini for dinner. “Did you catch that one, or was that the night you played in Florida?”

“Carolina, but I caught the highlights.” Dylan is hovering, trying to find ways to be useful in the kitchen. “Matty had that sick assist in the second. I texted him about it. Mom, lemme help.”

His mom elbows him, not gently, in the ribs. “I’m not having Leafs Nation come after me because I let you slice your own thumb off.”

“I won’t,” Dylan whines.

She levels a look at him. “I’ve seen you handle a knife, buddy. You can help by sitting down and keeping me company.”

So he does, and happily lets her pass on all the gossip on the McLeods she got from their mom during the Matt vs. Matt game. He repays her with all the gossip on his Leafs teammates, because she and his dad are still deciding who their favorites are besides Dylan and John. It was hard for them to be avid Leafs fans while following their sons’ three teams and their friends’ sons’ teams and their sons’ friends’ teams, but they both adore John “because he was such a sweet friend to Ryan in New York,” and there’s nothing they love more than someone who’s nice to their boys.

On the counter by the garage door, Connor’s book is peeking out from under a flyer about some Tecumseh Park events. There’s a bookmark sticking out of it at an odd angle. Dylan itches to ask his mom if it’s her or his dad reading it. When it came out, his mom had asked Dylan if he was planning to read it and he shrugged her off.

Dylan’s parents, like Dylan’s brothers, have mixed feelings about Connor. They treated him like a son when he and Dylan were close, but after last summer and the mess Dylan was getting through it, their affection has been tempered. Still, his mom will mention when she catches a good review of the book, and his dad has mentioned that he’s glad Connor seems to have gotten his feet under him. They’re loyal like that.

Connor’s apartment is walking distance from Dylan’s place, further uptown and east toward St. Lawrence. The building is old, but the apartments in it are new, the awning freshly gilded, at odds with the worn brick facade. Dylan takes a cab because he doesn’t want to spend the walk over counting books in storefronts, and when he gets there the doorman waves him in with a smile, pointing him toward the elevators.

He texts Connor when he’s on his way up so he can’t chicken out. The inside of the elevator is ostentatiously modern, with polished black marble floors and a mosaic of mirrors wrapped around the walls. Dylan stares at himself, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his pea coat. He wonders if he’s changed since Connor last saw him — before the game, and before the grocery store. If he’s broader where Connor remembers lankiness, or if his hair, shorter now after several years of letting it flop around his ears, reminds him of how Dylan wore it in juniors.

He takes several deep breaths outside of Connor’s door before knocking. Seconds later, Connor opens the door, and they stand there, staring at each other, for a moment that stretches into painful awkwardness.

“Sorry.” Connor clears his throat, steps aside. “Thanks for coming,” he says as Dylan toes his shoes off by the door. Connor takes Dylan’s coat and scarf, then clearly realizes he hasn’t thought about where to put a guest’s coat and scarf, so he takes them to the kitchen, Dylan following, and hangs both over the back of a chair.

It is indescribably strange, being in the same space as Connor again. Especially in this apartment that is foreign to Dylan, half-furnished and unadorned. Dylan perches on a stool at the counter that separates the open-plan kitchen from a barren living room while Connor gets two Carling Blacks from the fridge.

“So you live here now?” Dylan asks, not meaning this apartment, but Toronto, this specific place in Toronto, where they might run into each other in grocery stores.

“For now.” Connor takes a bottle opener to the beers, caps clinking onto the stone countertop. “It’s easier to be here, for book stuff. But it’s a little too crowded for me, so probably not for long.”

Dylan wants to shake him. Wants to yell, wants to demand to know how Connor can just stand here in front of him without offering apologies or explanations, as if any of this is just two old friends catching up. Connor must know how Dylan agonized over him. How he worried himself literally sick — nauseously, sleeplessly sick, until Ryan forced him to see a doctor for his feelings instead of his body. He must know that Dylan’s heart never quite healed from the loss, like a crooked-set bone that still aches when he puts pressure on it the wrong way. If Dylan wrapped him in a hug, pressed his face into Connor’s hair, would he smell the way Dylan remembers?

Connor brings Dylan a beer and sits on the stool next to him. Their knees are centimeters apart.

“Book stuff?” Dylan asks. “More signings?”

Connor nods, frowns, picks at his beer label with his thumb. He’s avoiding Dylan’s gaze, not in a shy way, but in an embarrassed way. “Yeah, uh. TSN is making a documentary? So I have to stick around while they work on that. For content and creative control.”

“Creative control.” Dylan snorts. Connor looks over.

“Why is that funny?”

Dylan shakes his head. “It’s not.” Takes a drink. “Jesus, Davo.”

“You’re mad at me,” Connor says.

“Yeah, a little.”

When they were in Erie, they only fought a few times, and none of those lasted very long. Connor couldn’t stand for Dylan to be mad at him, and Dylan was too much of a bleeding heart not to crumple in the face of Connor’s big sad eyes. One time, they got into a shouting match after a bad loss in — Windsor? Sarnia? and Dylan tried to go to bed angry, but Connor made Travis Dermott switch rooms with him after lights-out so he could crawl into Dylan’s bed, mumbling apologies, his breath hot against Dylan’s neck.

“Don’t be mad,” he whispered, tucked against Dylan’s side in the dark. “I can’t do this without you.”

Dylan doesn’t remember what they were so angry about, but he can recall exactly the feeling of Connor’s body rising and falling with the deep breathing of sleep, his elbow digging into Dylan’s stomach where his arm was wedged awkwardly between them. It took Dylan a long time to fall asleep. He made Connor buy his coffee at Tim’s the next morning.

Now, Connor says, “I thought you’d probably be.” He pauses, like there’s going to be more, but only asks, “Do you like playing here?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Dylan says. He wedges his thumbnail against the label on his beer until it rips. “I mean, I do. It’s nice being so close to home, and I always wanted to play here, you know? And there’s some cool guys on the team. It’s weird it doesn’t really feel like home yet, even though my actual home is like half an hour away. But it’s still cool.”

“I’ve caught a few games,” Connor says. “It seems like you’re playing well.”

Dylan closes his eyes. “Davo, I’m not trying to be rude, but I really couldn’t give less of a shit about what you think about how I’m playing.”

Connor is quiet. Dylan doesn’t look at him, because hoping he’s cowed by Dylan’s autonomy is different from watching to see him cowed by Dylan’s autonomy. Instead, he takes a long drink of his beer. Peels the label down further, tries to smooth it back up into place. He thinks with a mix of guilt and indulgence about all the times in the past when he wanted to snap at Connor and held his tongue, back when he thought it was his responsibility to safeguard the fragile parts of Connor’s ego.

Eventually, Connor says, “You know, I’m glad you’re here, but I’m not sure why you came.”

Dylan is wondering the same thing.

“Was kind of hoping you’d explain to me what the fuck happened,” he mumbles.

“I mean,” Connor says, a wounded edge to his voice. “I did write a whole book about it.”

Dylan levels a look at him. It takes a moment, but disappointment washes over Connor’s face.

“Oh,” he says. “Sorry. I just — figured you would have by now. Sorry.”

Dylan shrugs. “Not much of a reader.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

Now is when he should do his yelling, Dylan thinks. This is when he gets mad and demands answers. But something about the way the fight has gone out of Connor makes it impossible for him to get that anger stoked inside of him, so instead of anger all he has are the charcoaled remains of his feelings, crackling uselessly like a burnt-out fire.

“I did buy it, though,” he says.

Connor snorts. “Thanks, I’m sure it makes a great doorstop.”

“Dunno about that, but it is a good paperweight,” Dylan says dryly. It almost gets a smile out of Connor, almost, one corner of his mouth turning up for just a second. Dylan would like to say that hint of a smile doesn’t tempt him to stay, but of course it does, and that’s dangerous, so he downs the last of his beer in one long pull.

“Recycling?” he asks, and goes to put the bottle in the bin where Connor points.

“You want another?” Connor asks. Dylan shakes his head.

“You really think that’s a good idea?”

Connor frowns, chewing his lip, then says, “I was kind of hoping — I mean, I thought you would have read it, so. I was gonna ask if you’d do some stuff for the documentary. Just, like, a couple interviews or something. Since you’re kind of a big part of the story.”

“Christ,” Dylan says, rolling his eyes skyward, because of course, at the root of it all, everything always comes back to the same thing: the concept of Connor McDavid. Not Connor, and certainly not Connor and Dylan, but Connor Fucking McDavid, and the way he is in the eyes of the world. “How about the next time you wanna pitch me, just go through my agent?”

Dylan goes home and dumps the book right in the trash. Then he takes it out of the trash, gingerly wiping some coffee grounds off the bottom edge, and sets it on the counter instead. It’s a brand new book; he can at least donate it or something. Throwing it out might be satisfying, but that tiny grinning Connor-child would definitely haunt him. So — donate it. Later.

Right now, he could run through a wall. He feels like he’s just taken a shot of tequila and needs to punch something. His head swims with the memory of the past hour, which feels like a fever dream now that he’s back in his own apartment. How stupid could he be, thinking going over there was a good idea? That it would fix anything? How stupid could Connor be, thinking Dylan would have read his stupud book, that Dylan would be all ready to forgive and forget and jump in front of a camera to spill cutesy anecdotes to be filed away in the Archives of McDavid? A fucking documentary. For fuck’s sake.

A glance at the clock over the stove gives Dylan his options: Ryan is in the middle of a game. Alex is probably asleep, since he plays tonight and it’s west coast naptime. There are a few other people he could call, but no one he imagines would be as cathartic to rant to over the phone. His contacts blur as he scrolls endlessly, up and down and up again, until in a split-second he makes a decision and hits the call button.

“Can you come get drunk with me or are you too old for that?” he asks when John answers.

John laughs, amused. “I mean, I _can_. The question is whether or not I _will_.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re legally obligated to not let me drink about my feelings alone,” Dylan says. “So I sure hope you will. Or else you might have to lawyer up.”

“Wow, aggressive,” John says, but then, “Let me check with Aryne, but I think I can come over in about half an hour.”

“Okay, cool,” Dylan says. They hang up. He exhales.

The logic here is that John, being only tangential to the Davo-Stromer saga of the past decade, won’t already be tired of hearing about it, and also will definitely be on Dylan’s side, since he’s legally obligated and all. And John, being a beloved Canadian superstar who has still managed to be a normal fucking person, might be able to validate Dylan’s opinion of how a normal fucking person would have behaved in this situation.

It’s true that Dylan still thinks of John as Ryan’s friend, but John is also an easy person to fall in line behind, and an easy person to trust. He is as dedicated a friend as he is a dad and husband. Dylan still marvels, sometimes, at his memories of being twenty one years old, crashing at his brother’s house during the off-season to make up for lost time, and John would show up in the morning to make everyone breakfast before their training for the day. He included Dylan easily, even though Dylan was an irrelevant rookie falling far short of expectations and he was John fucking Tavares, who had long graced Dylan’s bedroom wall in a Canada-red jersey and World Juniors gold.

Of course Ryan told John about that. John rolled his eyes and grinned, sheepishly flattered, and later that day kicked Dylan’s ass in their 5K run.

Dylan should probably take the poster down at some point, but it’s not like he lives there anymore.

Forty-three minutes later, John shuffles into Dylan’s apartment with a Pizza Pizza box in one hand and a case of Molsons in the other. They pop open two beers and take the pizza into the living room to eat directly out of the box, sitting on the couch, hunched over the coffee table. John tells Dylan about Jace’s complicated math homework he was helping with when Dylan called, about Jules’ upcoming hockey tournament, about his and Aryne’s early scheming about Christmas gifts. It’s aimless, inconsequential chatter, and the tight knot of Dylan’s gut slowly uncoils. It’s easy to forget, sometimes, with Connor, that the world moves on around them whether they’re paying attention or not. Dylan’s therapist told him once that, when he’s feeling overwhelmed by one big thing, he should try to focus on smaller things farther away from him. It helps.

Jules’ coach has been switching the kids around to all different positions, John says, and it turns out she has a knack for goaltending, which is a struggle because John doesn’t know a damn thing about goaltending. Every goalie he’s ever met has been weird as hell, which he presumes you have to be to actively want people to shoot pucks at you. He swears you can still feel the dent in his foot where he accidentally blocked an Ovechkin one-timer once, and is going to have to make sure he gets her the thickest padding allowed by regulations.

But maybe she’ll decide scoring goals is way more fun anyway,” John says with wistful hope.

They’re several pizza slices and a few beers in apiece before John circles back around to ask, “So, are we drinking about McDavid, or is there some other ongoing crisis in your life?”

Dylan exhales a gusty sigh. There’s no point in beating around the bush. “TSN is making a documentary out of his book and he asked me to do some interviews or whatever for it.”

John’s eyebrows arch up into his hairline. “Oh yeah?”

“Did you know,” Dylan says, letting his head loll against the back of the couch, “that from the night he got hurt to the game he came to last week, he didn’t say a single word to me?”

“Ryan mentioned, yeah,” John says, treading carefully.

“Then he asked me to get drinks—” Dylan holds up the beer he’s drinking demonstratively “—and asked if I would be in his documentary.” He huffs a laugh that sounds dangerously like a sob, except he’s not crying. For once. “He looked actually surprised that I haven’t read his fucking book.”

“You still haven’t read it?” John asks, and holds his hands up in defense as Dylan shoots him a dirty look. “Hey, I’m not saying it wasn’t a shitty thing to do. Or that you owe him anything. But you two were so close for so long, I just thought you might be interested in his side of the story.”

“Well, I’m not,” Dylan says, so sullen he feels childish. He drains the last of his can and puts it on the coffee table. John reaches for it, standing up.

“I’ll grab another round,” he says. “But, for the record, I think you should think about it.”

If there was something really important in the book, something that would make Dylan change his mind and forgive everything, surely someone would have just told him by now. Right? He knows everyone thinks the book is good, but the details as to what exactly is so damn good about it have been hazy. Possibly this is because of Dylan’s staunch avoidance of all conversation about it, and his dedication to his narrowly curated stream of social media, but still, if there was a chapter in there that said, _and then I stopped talking to my best friend for no reason and it was a jackass move and I hope he forgives me_, someone would have told him.

So maybe things weren’t perfect between them when it happened. They were better than they had been. Things had been kind of shitty for a while, and then they went to Worlds together, and for the past few years they’d been almost normal. And then Connor just fucking — disappeared. Like none of it mattered.

John hollers from the kitchen, “Did you drop this book in the trash?”

Damn it. “Maybe kind of.”

John emerges, beers in one hand, the maligned McDavid tome in the other. He hands one can to Dylan and sets his own carefully on a coaster before settling back onto the couch, pulling his feet up to sit cross-legged. He opens the book, frowning as he brushes away coffee grounds clinging to the bottom edges of the pages.

“I mean, I get it if sports memoirs aren’t your thing, but this is a little extreme,” he says.

“I was in a bad mood,” Dylan says. John is turning the pages one by one, brow furrowed in concentration. “I don't even know why I bought it in the first place.”

“Sure you don’t,” John mutters, more to himself than to Dylan. It’s hard to get John to break character, but he has had enough to drink that he’s loose around the edges, color in his cheeks, hair sticking up on one side where he keeps scrubbing a thoughtful hand through it. Dylan has had enough to drink that he let John get this close to him with that stupid book, which is not how he planned for this evening to go, but he doesn’t have the willpower to fight back against this tide of the universe that clearly wants to push Connor at him. Not right now, anyway. Maybe tomorrow. He closes his eyes, just for a moment, and lets the room swim around him.

“There we go.” John has found whatever he was looking for.

“I don’t want it,” Dylan mumbles.

“Too bad,” John says. He clears his throat and sits up straight, holding the book up like he’s reading to children at storytime. Dylan stretches one leg out to kick him in the thigh, but John easily catches his foot, winding his arm around Dylan’s ankle so it’s trapped in the crook of his elbow. He shoots Dylan a warning look, which Dylan responds to with a shrug of innocence, both hands up and open, sprawled awkwardly halfway down the couch because of the hold John has him in.

"Look,” John says. “I’m going to read you one paragraph, because I think it will be good for you to hear, and then we can put the book away. Okay?”

He pauses for Dylan to nod, and dictates in his deep monotone:

“'I loved Erie, but everything I loved about Erie could easily be found in Dylan, too. For some reason, he loved me back enough to lead where I couldn’t, in ways that taught me instead of making me look unqualified. People talk a lot about the hand I had in turning the last-place Otters around, but there’s a reason Dylan is the one who led them to a championship. He feels loyalty down to his bones.’”

John closes the book and looks at Dylan.

“Now obviously I don’t know all the details of what happened between you two,” he says, “But I just wanted to tell you. When I read that, I thought it was the most accurate description of you I had ever heard.”

That night, Dylan drinks until he pukes, and the next morning, he starts reading the book.

“Honest and important,” proclaims one review on the back cover. “A brave and refreshing look at superstardom in sports,” says another. As if sports memoirs aren’t nearly all ghost-written fluff, timelines fleshed out with anecdotes and platitudes and some inspirational quotes. But everything Connor does is special, of course, by virtue of it being Connor who does it.

Dylan is sitting on his couch when he begins, cozy under the big fuzzy Leafs blanket his mom bought him when he got the condo. Morning light slants through the sliding glass door to his balcony, the blinds painting golden stripes on the floor. He’s sipping a huge mug of dark, strong coffee, warding off the dregs of a headache that has been threatening to take root since he woke up. He needs a shower, but he doesn’t have the energy.

He turns the pages slowly, vigilantly, as if the words might leap off the page and punch him in the face. More reviews; a list of other sports books from the publisher; the splashy title page; the tiny text of the copyright information. Then:

> _For Mom, Dad, and Cam, for always being there, especially now.  
_ _And for the other half of me, who deserved better._

Dylan smooths his hand over the page, a fresh ache blooming in his chest. _I deserved better_, he wants to say, but speaking out loud to a book verges on tragic, and he has worked very hard not to be tragic. The place for him in Connor’s heart started shrinking long before these words were written. He is not reading this for closure. That’s what all the therapy was for.

He steels himself, then swallows hard and turns to the table of contents.

The book is divided into four sections: _Before — Erie — Edmonton — After_. It’s strange, to see Connor’s life so neatly compartmentalized, when Dylan’s memories of it are such a rollercoaster. But at the same time, he thinks, he could write his own version of this. _Before_: before Connor, before the Otters, before he knew how it felt for his heart to be filled with anything besides family and hockey. _Erie_, with Connor, full of fumbling hope and new heat in his veins; _Erie_, without Connor, full of yearnings so strong they kept him up for nights at a time, culminating with a championship trophy lifted high above his head.

_Edmonton_, stealing Connor from him bit by bit, as Dylan tried and gave up and tried again. _After_, when all his trying wasn’t enough.

Dylan turns to Chapter One. He takes a deep breath—

> All my life, I thought hockey would be the thing that made me happy.

and stops.

The memory is complete and visceral. After the draft lottery in Toronto when the Oilers won the McDavid sweepstakes, after Connor was done with the media and they exchanged pleasantries with Hanifin and all the brass hanging around, after dinner with their parents, they went back to their airport-adjacent NHL-sponsored hotel so they could fly back to Erie the next morning and continue their playoff run. They had been offered separate rooms, but easily agreed to share.

Connor was quiet. He had been since they left the studio. Just tired, he told his parents with a wan smile, but Dylan knew better. Connor had two types of tired: the normal kind, and the kind where what he was really tired of was people projecting futures onto him that he hadn’t even had a chance to daydream about yet. Once they were alone, Dylan opened his arms, and Connor came to him and let himself be wrapped up. They stood there for a long time, holding onto each other and breathing.

“I know I’m supposed to just be happy,” Connor said, warm and damp against Dylan’s shoulder. “I mean, it’s hockey. It’s the NHL. I should just be happy. But everything’s going to change.”

“Hey,” Dylan said, “hey.” He kissed the side of Connor’s head. “You can feel whatever you want. And who needs hockey? You have me to make you happy.”

Dylan reads.

It’s slow-going. He has to psych himself up to turn each page, and sometimes he has to stop and sit until the tide of emotions inside him ebbs again. The first section of the book meanders through Connor’s prodigious childhood. Through the thrill of learning to fly on the ice. Through his parents trying to handle his earliest anxieties, managing expectations when he was barely old enough to read. His mom making sticker charts so he could see the path to the things he wanted. He writes about realizing he was better than everyone else, and about realizing he was treated differently because he was better than everyone else. About being shy, and deciding to be okay with that, because he didn’t want to be hated for being good _and_ loud. About the pure joy of the game taking root inside of him, growing, blossoming into wild dreams. About one time in grade seven when he walked into a classroom and found some classmates reading an article about how he was the next Sidney Crosby or whatever and how he had no reason to be anything but proud but he wanted to sink into the floor and he couldn’t figure out why.

The Connor that Dylan knew would have hated for people to see his insecurities laid out like this, but the book is built around them, frank and unapologetic. The happiest he was, Connor writes, is when he was playing, flying too fast for anyone to chirp him, too fast to be stopped, the game thrumming in his veins.

When Dylan reaches the page separating Connor’s childhood from major junior, the name of the little Pennsylvania city they shared printed in bold letters across the middle of it, he closes the book and doesn’t look at it again for three days. Then, he reads one page, puts it down again, and leaves on a six-day roadtrip with the book still open face-down on his bedside table. While they’re gone, Connor does another book signing at the SportChek by the arena.

In the locker room before their game in Dallas, Tanner shouts, “They’re gonna make a McDavid documentary!”

TSN has just put a teaser for it on Twitter, and it’s all the rookies talk about for the next hour.

“You think they’ll let me audition to play young Stromer?” Kev asks. “Stromer, what do you think?”

“No, you’re way too ugly,” Dylan says. Kev flips him off while everyone else laughs.

“I think you’re just ugly enough to be young Stomer,” says Tanner, hooking an affectionate arm around his friend’s neck. “You be him and I’ll be McDavid and you can love and support me unconditionally while I win a bunch of scoring trophies.”

“You going to learn to score?” Mikko asks, so wide-eyed that even Dylan cracks up.

Sometimes, it’s still jarring to be confronted with the place he holds in the hockey mythology his younger teammates grew up with. But once Dylan is teammates with someone, they get to know the real him, so it doesn’t really matter what they ascribed to him watching from their living rooms. It’s easier to just accept it and keep moving, to finish taping his socks, to strap the rest of his gear on and go play the game.

He didn’t used to mind so much. The first time he realized the new crop of prospects was looking up to him, far enough removed from his juniors class that there was no longer overlap in friends and teammates, he was still in Chicago. He and Alex ribbed each other about it every chance they got. It was fun to figure out who thought of them as Chicago’s Strome-and-Debrincat, and whose lore reached back further to McDavid-and-Strome. At first, it was more of the former, but then there was that Worlds a few years ago that threw Connor and Dylan back together for a few weeks and Hockey Canada marketed the hell out of it.

It was the only time they ever won something together. Apparently, it was memorable.

After the game, which they lose, and after the media, who seem to think Dylan and his teammates don’t understand how close they are to a playoff spot and how useful those two points would have been, John drops into the stall next to Dylan and knocks their shoulders together.

“So they decided to forge ahead with the doc even without your valuable contributions, eh? No way it’ll be any good now.”

Dylan glowers. “Can you please make sure the wonder twins don’t hear you say that?”

John raises his eyebrows, but keeps his voice down. “You think they’d be crushed to learn their bromance goals icons aren’t actually speaking?”

“Yes,” says Dylan. “_And_ that they’d bully me into actually doing it, which, you know, I don’t want to.”

“Not even for the kids?” John asks, but bumps his shoulder against Dylan’s again, more genly, with sympathy. “This is pretty weird and tough for you, eh?”

Dylan nods, then sighs and drops his head into his hands, suddenly exhausted. He pushes his fingers into his sweaty curls and sits there, elbows on his knees, forehead in his palms, and tries to swallow the urge to cry. Tears are just starting to prick at his eyelids when John’s hand comes to rest on his back. Dylan sucks in a shaky breath, and John rubs slow circles between his shoulder blades, silent and without expectation.

When Dylan pulls himself together enough to go shower, the locker room has mostly cleared out. A few guys are still hanging around, killing time before the bus back to the hotel; others have already caught rides to grab a late dinner or drinks or whatever. John pats Dylan’s shoulder one more time and ruffles his hair before he goes on his way.

Back in his hotel room, Dylan calls Alex. The Kings didn’t have a game tonight, which Dylan knows not only because he has Alex’s schedule memorized, but also because Alex blew Dylan’s phone up with play-by-play commentary through the entire Leafs game.

“I’m still pretty sure that game-winner was offsides,” is how Alex answers the phone. Dylan laughs. He puts Alex on speaker, flops onto the mattress, and closes his eyes.

“I appreciate that, but it really wasn’t,” he says. “How are you?”

Alex is good. Dylan already knows this. He’s leading the Kings in points, his team sitting fairly comfortably in second place in the Pacific. Lyndsey is twenty weeks pregnant. Alex texted Dylan the first sonogram pictures a week ago, along with the unfortunate news that Lyndsey does not think “Dylan” is a good name for their firstborn child. She swears it’s not because the image of Dylan as a dumbass teenager with bleach-blond hair is scarred into her brain forever. Neither Alex nor Dylan believe her, but they don’t blame her either.

Hearing that Alex is good in his own voice, though, is more comforting than reading it over text. The fondness in his voice for Dylan, the warmth when he talks about his wife, the dumb little high-pitched voice he gives the fetus like it’s already got its own feelings and opinions — Dylan listens, and the aching knot in his chest loosens. He misses Alex viscerally, and he hates that they’re not together, that they have to chase their dreams separately now, that he doesn’t get to drink too much and fall asleep on Alex’s couch or tease Lyndsey about her baby belly or steal Ralph to go on walks when he wants to get away. They were their own kind of family, for a while.

“You’ll never guess who texted me yesterday,” Alex says.

Dylan sighs. “Don’t tell me. Davo texted you.”

“Creepy,” says Alex. “But yeah. Are you — I should have guessed, since he’s in Toronto right now, are you guys hanging out?” The ‘and you didn’t tell me?’ is implied.

This is a problem Dylan has been wrestling with for weeks: if Dylan tells Alex about his Connor encounters, lays everything out from the grocery store to the drinks to finally opening the book, Alex will try to tell him how to fix it. He’ll listen, and he’ll be on Dylan’s side, but he’ll tell Dylan how to fix it. He has talked Dylan through things before, with Connor, with life, when Dylan was too hopped up on his own feelings to figure out the right move. Alex likes to make things right.

More than once, Dylan started texts and never sent them. He feels bad, keeping the secret from Alex when he spilled so much to John, but sometimes it’s just easier to talk to someone more removed from the situation — that’s why therapy works, right? Besides, he doesn’t know if he wants to make this right. He doesn’t know if it can be fixed, and he doesn’t want to be told how to fix it only to try and have it all blow up in his face.

“I’ve seen him around a couple times,” he settles on. It’s not a lie. “He did that signing at the arena. The wonder twins were stoked as hell.”

“I bet,” Alex says. “Man, it’s weird, right? Suddenly having him around again.” From Alex’s tone, Dylan can picture the exact face he’s making: a little twist of a frown, nose scrunching up, eyes narrowing into crescent moons. Not unhappy, just perplexed. It would be a welcome sight, if they were video chatting, but then Alex would also be able to see Dylan’s red-rimmed eyes, would be able to place the croak in his voice as something other than fatigue.

Once upon a time, Dylan’s favorite place to be was sprawled on Alex’s couch with Alex and Ralph, watching sports while Lyndsey did grad school homework at the kitchen table, the remains of their carry-out dinner still stacked on the counter. She would take a break every half hour and wander over to let them give her a recap on the game so far, and eventually quit for the night, wedging herself next to Alex and forcing Ralph to pick a lap. It was easy and comfortable, and it doesn’t exist anymore, but Dylan gets homesick every time he thinks about it.

“Yeah, I mean.” Dylan blinks at the ceiling. He doesn’t need to cry again tonight. “I don’t know. It is weird. What did he text you about?”

“Grabbing dinner when he’s out here for some book stuff in January. Which, yeah, of course I will, but I’m surprised he’d ask me before you. Or, I don’t know, maybe he’s working his way up to you. Are you okay?”

Dylan thought his sniffling was quiet enough. Apparently not.

“Yeah, I just,” he says thickly. “Fuck, I’m so pissed at him.”

“I mean, I think you’re allowed to be, now that we know he’s alive and stuff. Dyl, come on.” He doesn’t say _stop crying_ because he knows that’s a useless request with Dylan, who has been known to cry over particularly sentimental commercials, but he clearly doesn’t think it’s worth crying over.

“Yeah,” Dylan says, scrubbing his cheeks. “Yeah, sorry. Fuck. Look, I’m gonna go grab a late bite with some of the guys, so I gotta go.” A lie, but he wants an excuse to hang up. “Let me know how dinner goes when it happens, eh?”

“Of course,” Alex says. “Love ya, bud, have fun.”

Instead of having fun, Dylan lies on his bed for a while longer, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth, like his therapist told him to. Hot tears slide from the corners of his eyes down his temples, past his ears, into his hair, the lump in his throat rising to fill his whole mouth. All he wants is an apology. _Sorry, Stromer, I should have told you where I was going. I should have told you I might not be around for a while, but that’s just what I needed for me, and it’s no reflection on you._

Maybe that’s selfish. Dylan doesn’t care. He deserved better.

The Maple Leafs split the trip 2-2. If they play well for the rest of the month, they might go into the new year in a wild card spot. Dylan is grimly determined to get there, because, despite everything, he has never stopped wanting to he the person who drags his team past the finish line. It’s selfish, but in Erie, his Captain year, he never got tired of hearing the phrase _Dylan Strome’s Otters_. And these are John’s Leafs, or Mo’s Leafs — certainly not his Leafs. He’s not trying to steal that from anyone, but he wants people to see this team and think, man, Dylan Strome, he was just the pickup Toronto needed.

The flight home is long and quiet. Five hours from the desert to the great white north. They leave straight from the arena in Glendale with an ETA of ass o’clock in the morning. Half of the guys are asleep before the plane levels out at cruising altitude, but Dylan doesn’t wind down so easily. Beecher is zonked out in the seat next to him, head resting askew on his neck pillow, glasses sliding down his nose, book open on his lap. Not Connor’s book, at least.

Dylan has some movies downloaded to his iPad, so he scrolls through his options enough times to kill nearly an hour. A SnapChat notification pops up on his phone. It’s Kev and Tanner, three rows back, grainy in the dim glow of their book lights, pulling faces with flower crown filters. Across the aisle in the other window seat, Mo also checks his phone, laughs, and nudges John to show him. Mo raises his phone, selfie-style, and a moment later Dylan gets the notification: Mo grinning, John looking sleepy and skeptical, both of them with their own flower crowns. _Who wore it better_, says the caption.

Dylan rolls his eyes and texts the team group chat: _Ur all beautiful. Its not a competition_.

_Aw thx stromer_, Kappy replies from somewhere on the plane. Mo sends a kissy-face emoji; John a thumbs-up. The wonder twins send a selfie, cheeks pressed together as they smile beatifically. Dylan takes a picture of Beecher, angling his phone to get the flower crown filter onto him, and sends that to the group.

_Sleeping beauty_, John says. He’s got a private little smile on his face, just visible in the glow of his phone, that Dylan can't help spying on. It’s a special thing, to be in love with your team. Thinking about it too hard makes Dylan’s heart hurt with things he wishes he didn’t miss so much, but in small moments like this, it’s okay. It’s good. He’s getting there, maybe.

Dylan has never had another team as close as the Otters were. In Chicago, they came close for a while, but it’s different in the NHL, where guys have wives and children, real families of their own. It’s not a place for staying up all night talking about the future; it’s a place for living it.

Sometimes, Dylan dreams that he’s still in his billet bedroom in Erie, huddled under the blankets with Connor, whispering about the newest possibilities based on that night’s standings, their fingers thinking about twining together as Dylan counts the draft lottery teams against Connor’s palm. Arizona, Edmonton, Carolina — the possibilities and probabilities changed every day. Maybe Buffalo, maybe Toronto. Maybe one of them to each. Practically next door. Connor would look at him with big eyes in the dark and Dylan would think with naive wonder: _he can’t do this without me_. Maybe he’ll wake up one day soon to Connor, still sleeping, inches away, with the lives they planned still wide open in front of them.

Another Snap notification. This filter has Kev in dog ears, Tanner in cat ears, both of them making kissy faces. John catches Dylan’s eye, trying so hard not to look as helplessly amused as he is. Dylan rolls his eyes fondly.

Honestly, the life he ended up with is pretty good. But there are so many loose ends he doesn’t know what to do with, and they get tangled up so easily.

> Around now in writing this book is when I start fixating on not sounding grateful enough. About not appreciating the time and effort so many people generously poured into my life. About not understanding how lucky I've been. Is there any sin worse in professional sports than not being grateful enough? Being an NHL star is the dream. Complaining about being an NHL star is a moral failing, no matter what it's doing to you on the inside.
> 
> I wrote the first draft of this, and Ryan* said to me, "This isn't how you really feel." So I wrote another draft, and Ryan said, "This still isn't how you really feel. Why are you even writing if you're not going to be honest?"
> 
> But being honest isn’t something I’m brave enough to do without caveat, so before I continue, I need to preface this with some statements: I am grateful. If you ever helped me, put time and effort into building my dream of an NHL life, I appreciate you. I understand how lucky I was. I understand how many people would have given anything to have my life. I understand. And for you, reading this, I ask that you please understand: No one feels guiltier than me that, in the end, I couldn’t be what I was supposed to be. And please understand this too: I’m not going to apologize for it. I did in the first draft. Ryan said if I did that I should probably just burn the whole book.
> 
> But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. We’re not even to the draft yet.
> 
> When I first came to Erie at fifteen years old, I had no idea what to expect. I wanted to play in the OHL because it was the highest level available to me, and I hated when things were too easy. I couldn’t grow when things were too easy. In retrospect, this city was the best place for me for reasons I didn’t realize until later, tucked away on the American side of Lake Erie, just slightly too inconvenient for big media outlets to seriously consider covering closely. Erie loves its Otters, though, so for three years I got to play in this microcosm of the hockey world, learning about life and love and leadership and expectations and, of course, hockey, on a small enough scale to be manageable even as my dreams loomed ahead. It gave me people to turn to when things got hard, even if I didn’t fully understand all of my own feelings at the time.
> 
> I had the plan laid out in front of me. I could count the days until I first stepped onto NHL ice. I had a second family, a hockey family, and I had the best friend I could ever ask for next to me nearly the entire time. He is probably the most important part here. But I’ll get to that later. First, I want to talk about Erie, the town, the people, the team.

> *Nugent-Hopkins. I realize that there are fifty thousand Ryans in hockey, but I’m not going to write “The Nuge” over and over for 350 pages. Other Ryans will be specified.

Connor’s rookie season in the NHL, he got slammed headfirst into the boards by two guys bigger than him and worse at hockey than him, and his collar bone snapped. He knew right away it was broken, he told Dylan later, but he didn’t want anyone to panic, so he picked himself back up and went to the bench and sat, cradling his arm and gritting his teeth, until he could slip down the tunnel and get it checked out. He got his x-rays and his brace and his sling, his doctor’s orders and his painkillers, and he came to Erie.

It had been a long season in Erie. A good season — a great one — but a long one. Even now, possibly Dylan’s best season ever. He spent the whole thing high on his captaincy and driven to distraction with proving himself, racking up wins and points that are still catalogued meticulously in his mind. More than Connor McDavid’s second line center: that’s what he was showing the people of Erie. He could give them more than the chosen one. It was exhilarating and exhausting. He probably averaged about five hours of sleep a night, not counting naps. Those naps were lifesavers.

But Connor came back to Erie, broken and sheepish and, once his eyes met Dylan’s, smiling in a way Dylan hadn’t seen in almost a year. Dylan wrapped him up and breathed him in, and the world settled into place around them.

“Welcome home,” he murmured into Connor’s hair, and Connor laughed, the sound catching in his throat. His good hand curled into the collar of Dylan’s coat behind his neck and held on.

_Ok one interview_, Dylan texts. Then, _For the tsn doc_, as if Connor could have forgotten the breaking point of their last conversation. It’s been almost two weeks since then. Who knows, maybe Connor is so busy being a bestselling author making a documentary about his fascinating life that he did forget.

But: _Ok - I’ll have someone email u about timing. I appreciate it_.

And that’s that.

Someone named Jared does indeed email Dylan about timing, and he picks a day. The soonest day he can manage that fits their schedule, because he doesn’t want to sit around stewing over this. Maybe, once it’s over, he’ll stop being so nauseous all the time. Maybe he’ll feel less guilty.

He’s tying up loose ends, or something.

Dylan hasn’t been inside Bell Media's headquarters at 299 Queen Street West before, just the big TSN studio out in Scarborough, and he barely resists the urge to press his face to the window as his taxi pulls up in front of the massive building. The neo-Gothic facade was deep-cleaned and restored a couple years ago, and now the off-white terra cotta stands out unnaturally bright from the surrounding city blocks. In the street-level windows around the entrance, promotional signage for Bell’s satellite radio stations pepper him with choices in stylized neon block letters: would he like pop, alt-rock, oldies? Or maybe news and sports?

The cab driver lets Dylan out right at the front doors. The lobby is modern, spacious, and unnervingly quiet compared to the bustle of the street outside. He checks in with an older woman at the front desk, earning himself a smile by complimenting the Leafs pin on her lapel before heading to the elevator.

On the fifth floor, as promised, a production assistant (Jared from the emails, he introduces himself) is waiting to guide him to a studio at the end of the hall. The room is smaller than Dylan expects — just big enough for a two-camera setup around the stool and greenscreen at the center of it, lights and reflectors crowded around. Connor is there, in jeans and a muted blue-and-yellow flannel button-down, the sleeves rolled three-quarters of the way up his forearms. He’s wearing his reading glasses and talking to two men in TSN polos, nodding, studiously serious as they all read something on a clipboard. It takes him a moment to notice when Jared brings Dylan into the room, and Dylan uses that time to take in the sight of him, absorbed in his work. It’s a sight Dylan always thought was reserved for the rink.

“Stromer,” Connor says when he looks up. He takes off his glasses and hooks them in the front of his shirt. If anyone else notices the relief in his voice, they don’t show it.

“Hey.” Dylan walks over and claps a hand on Connor’s shoulder. A semblance of normalcy is probably good, here. “So you want me to, what? Talk about this guy?”

“That’s the idea,” the bigger TSN guy says. Dylan exchanges handshakes and introductions all around. The big, beardy one is Bill the director; the other one, slim with thick-framed glasses, is Elijah, Bill's assistant. The camera crew is en route, they explain, as a two-person hair and makeup team swoops in to touch Dylan up. At this point in his career, Dylan has given up telling people that trying to hide his dark circles is a lost cause. He just lets them go through the process of dabbing, humming, and giving up on their own.

While they wait, Bill has topics and questions to go over with Dylan, so he can work on what he wants to say. They want the footage to be genuine and fairly extemporaneous, but are happy to help Dylan rehearse a bit if that makes him more comfortable.

Dylan isn’t sure there’s anything in the world that could make him more comfortable, but he does an okay job faking it.

“What’s Davo here for?” he asks. “To stand behind the cameras and make faces at me?”

“Mostly, yeah,” Elijah says. Connor punches him in the arm; he laughs, holding his hands up in innocence.

“My creative input is very valuable,” Connor says. “And contractually obligated, so they’re not allowed to send me away.” There’s a hint of defensiveness there, but judging from the mood in the room, that has more to do with Dylan than the crew. So maybe this is his team now, and Dylan is the one looking in from the outside.

These are the things they want Dylan to talk about: playing with Connor in Erie. Being friends with Connor before he was in the NHL. Connor, off the ice and away from the rink, as a human being, from a friend’s point of view. That Worlds in Helsinki when they won together.

These are the things Dylan wants to talk about: Connor, not saying a word for a year and a half. Connor in Erie, curled up in Dylan’s bed, their knees bumping nervously under the covers as they talked about the futures they thought they would share. That Worlds in Helsinki, when Dylan was painfully, stupidly sure for just one moment that Connor was finally going to kiss him, standing on the Pitkäsilta in the middle of the night with no one else around, the noises of the city faint behind the soundtrack of black baywater lapping at the bridge and the pounding of Dylan’s heart.

Connor in Erie, curled up in Dylan’s bed, their knees bumping nervously under the covers as Connor’s fingers inched up under Dylan’s shirt, a question that they never answered. His warm palm pressed to Dylan’s ribs, breath blooming in a hot sigh across Dylan’s neck.

Their list seems safer.

It’s an easy enough interview. Dylan answered questions like these routinely when he was younger, when the media thought the McDavid connection was a surefire way to get clicks on their articles. Not that they were wrong. It’s like riding a bike, or whatever, and he rattles off his family-friendly anecdotes, reminisces about Connor as a teenager, his shyness and his sharpness; his wunderkind skill and incredible speed; his soft hands, the softest hands in Canada — Dylan says this with a laugh, because it will surely be spliced together with clips of ten other guys talking about silky mitts, but he knows how the pillows of Connor’s palms felt on his bony teenage body.

He barrels past the memory into an easy quip about how close they all were in Erie, back then. How their coaches would tease the two of them about being attached at the hip, but trusted them to keep each other out of trouble. He talks about watching Connor grow as a leader, because that’s the kind of shit documentaries like this love, and about how much Connor stressed about it, in private, knowing he would be leading for the rest of his career, and being unsure if he was good at it, or if people followed just because it was already decided that they would.

“That’s something Connor mentioned specifically in the book, how you helped with that,” Bill prompts from off-camera. “Can you tell us more about that?”

The lights are getting hot. Dylan shifts on the stool, fixes his posture, tries not to think about the weight of Connor’s gaze on him.

“Yeah, I mean.” Dylan shrugs. “He was a good captain, obviously, but he was a shy kid, you know? So especially at the beginning, he did a lot of leading by example and he’d talk to the room kind of generally, but sometimes I knew he was worried about a particular guy or something, and kind of wasn’t sure how to approach him, and I was, you know — extremely not shy. So I’d talk to them instead. Or help him figure out what to say. We both wanted what was best for the team, and for each other, so it made sense to work together like that.”

Connor shifts closer to Bill, head ducked to murmur in his ear. They have a hushed discussion, Connor’s face serious, Bill’s thoughtful.

“Are you talking about me?” Dylan asks, trying for joking.

Bill chuckles. “Connor says you’re being too nice about what a mess he was. But he says that about everybody.”

Connor folds his arms across his chest. Dylan knows the look on his face, the one where he wants to roll his eyes but knows that would be bad PR. Annoyance bubbles up in him.

“You see what happened right there?” he asks, nodding at Bill and Connor even though the camera can’t see them. “Now you see how I got roped into it. He talks to you about a problem and you feel like you need to fix it for him even though he could have done something himself. There’s just something about him that makes you want to fix it for him. And Davo is — you know, he’s good at a lot of things, but confrontation isn’t very high on the list.”

He doesn’t take his eyes off Connor while these words tumble out of his mouth. Connor’s shoulders are stiff and square, his fingers curling into his sleeves, knuckles white. He lifts his chin, though, meeting Dylan’s gaze.

Dylan shrugs again. “But I wouldn’t call him a mess. Not while we played together. He was a kid under a lot of pressure, obviously, way more pressure than most people will ever even think about, so, you know, yeah, he needed a lot of support. And he was kind of high-maintenance and, I guess, a little difficult sometimes, but he was also my best friend. I was happy to help because I loved him.”

Connor’s eyes drop away. He chews on his lower lip and scuffs a loafer against the floor. It’s hard to tell with the shadows, but Dylan would bet that his ears are red, the way they get when he’s more ashamed than embarrassed.

Dylan hops off the stool. “Can we take a restroom break?”

The room is taut with tension that’s maybe one treasured memory away from snapping. The crew seems unfazed, though, so maybe that’s just Dylan, dialed in to Connor and turned up to eleven. Jared the production assistant points Dylan toward the nearest restroom and he leaves their amiable chatter behind. The bluish fluorescents outside the room make the hallway swim around him. Connor must have known how this would go when he asked Dylan to be here. Any of these people could go home tonight and tell their friends and family how strange this was, how they thought Dylan Strome and Connor McDavid were such good friends, how they expected something different, lighter, better.

Maybe Connor doesn’t care how they talk about him, now. Maybe Dylan doesn’t know him at all anymore.

When Dylan comes out of the bathroom, Connor is slouched against the wall, texting. Dylan wonders if he’ll ever get used to turning the corner and seeing him again, like a hallucination or a ghost, the haunting of Dylan’s heart right there as flesh and blood. Connor has his reading glasses on again. Dylan liked those, when they were younger. He would tease Connor about looking nerdy. Would steal them off his face for selfies just so Connor would wrestle them back from him. Maybe it’s the lighting in the hallway, but for the first time today, Dylan notices that Connor looks tired.

Connor straightens when he sees Dylan, sticking the phone in his back pocket.

“Hey,” he says. “I wanted to talk to you for a sec.”

“You have notes on my performance?” Dylan asks. Connor’s voice is low; Dylan matches the volume despite his annoyance. Apparently there are still conversations Connor doesn’t want recorded for broadcast.

Connor frowns at his forearm where a cuff button has come untucked from his rolled-up sleeve. He tucks it meticulously back into place before he lifts his eyes to Dylan again.

“I mean, I was hoping you’d be a little more honest.”

Dylan raises his eyebrows. “You sure about that? Because it might not be very heartwarming.”

“You think I invited you here thinking you’d be heartwarming?” Connor asks. His brow is furrowed, but he almost sounds the way he used tease, stone-faced, just to watch people jump into action thinking they’d said the wrong thing to him. It never worked on Dylan. _You think I like you for your brain?_ Connor would ask, _You think I like you for your face? _always culminating in arms looped around Dylan, the conclusion muffled into his hair with a grin: _I like all of you, dummy_.

“Well, Davo, I don’t know,” Dylan says, crossing his arms. “I kinda thought you’d want me to be nice, since this is your legacy or whatever. But hell if I know anything about this. I just thought maybe if I keep showing up then eventually I’ll get an apology and I can move on with my life.”

The look that crosses Connor’s face is like a split-second hurricane.

“I am sorry,” he says. “Of course I’m sorry.”

“So why not just say that up front?” Dylan asks, his voice catching. He swallows. He feels unmoored. He is not going to cry here. He deserves better than to cry here.

“Because.” Connor’s brow is furrowed, his posture rigid. His gaze slides to the left of Dylan, to the wall behind him, as he weighs his options and decides on an answer. “It’s about more than just being sorry.”

“You wanna elaborate on that?”

“Not here I don’t.”

“Great,” Dylan says. “That’s fucking great, Davo. Let’s just go finish your damn documentary, then.”

He gets two steps down the hall before Connor catches him by the wrist. The world stops for a moment, Dylan’s breath halfway to his lungs, his heart between beats. He wishes he wanted to wrench away, but it takes all his willpower not to crumple where he stands.

“What do you want?” he snaps.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Connor says. The words sound like they hurt coming out of him. Like he’s offering something he cut out of his own chest. He lets go of Dylan, but the handprint keeps burning. Soft hands, and bones that still remember them. “I mean it.”

“Are you sure?” Dylan rubs his wrist.

“Of course I am.” Connor takes half a step closer, then seems to think better of it, rocking on the balls of his feet. His mouth twists as he bites the inside of his lip. “Look, you don’t — you can be done, if you want. I can make excuses for you.

He looks so resigned. Dylan is so tired.

“I’m gonna go,” he says. “Just say there was an emergency or whatever.”

Connor nods, his face carefully blank in that way Dylan has always hated. It’s his worst mask: the one that’s not allowed to feel things, instead of the one that feels the right things.

“Thanks for trying,” Connor says.

Dylan thinks about that almost-smile back in Connor’s apartment, the one that almost tempted him to stay. He thinks if he got one of those now, it would work, and he would. He even waits another beat, giving one the chance to appear, but of course it’s a useless thing to hope for in this moment, so he sighs and says, “I’ll come back when you decide what you want from me.”

He doesn't look back as he walks to the elevator.

Outside, it’s sleeting, slashes of freezing rain cutting through the gray Toronto winter. It stings Dylan’s face when he tilts his head up, looking for a hint of sun that isn’t there. He winces, but it wakes him up. Being around Connor is a dangerous dream, because there are too many questions about what’s real and what’s not, about what Dylan is allowed to hold onto, about which memories matter. But this is real: the wind biting at his hands, the tiny drops of ice clinging to his coat. The city bus with his face on the side kicking up slush as it passes is real. The shitty weather is real. He pulls on his hat and gloves and walks the ten blocks home.

They play the Sabres at home on a Friday night. Dylan gets a suite for his parents and the McLeods to watch as he and Mikey battle it out for approximately the five hundredth time in their lives. It’s a far cry from Lorne Park street hockey, but it still gives Dylan a thrill to look up in the faceoff circle and waggle his eyebrows at his old friend. Mikey, in response, pops his mouthguard out to give Dylan a newly gap-toothed grin, that front left incisor a casualty of last year’s playoffs.

Dylan feels good on the ice lately. The strength-building exercises prescribed by his trainers seem to be helping; his hip hasn’t bothered him in weeks. He’s on another point streak that’s giving the goal streak from early in the season a run for its money, and the team is exactly one point out of a wildcard spot. There are two weeks left in December. They are definitely going to go into the new year as a playoff team.

Once the puck drops, the guys are buzzing, passes zipping tape-to-tape. They’ve got Buffalo floundering, playing on their heels. Nicky scores two goals early in the first period, and Kev adds another in the final seconds of it, flying from behind their own blue line, splitting the defense and leaving a Sabres fourth-liner sprawled on the ice and cursing. It’s easily the best goal of the rookie’s year so far, maybe even goal-of-the-year material, and Kev knows it. He leaps into Dylan’s arms with a whoop as Scotiabank goes wild around them.

That is something Dylan will never get tired of: seeing his friends experience their own magical moments in this sport. Having even the smallest hand in those moments. Creating memories his teammates will cherish forever.

The locker room is rowdy at intermission. Mo circles the room, giving increasingly complex high-fives to everyone as John lists off the good things they did that period. Dylan ruffles Kev’s sweaty blond mop of hair and gets a manic grin in return. The look of a kid who feels like he can do anything.

The second period starts out fast and chippy, and two and a half minutes in, the fourth-liner victim of Kev’s ankle-breaking lines a hit up from halfway across the ice and bulldozes Kevin into the boards with a crunch that should be confined to construction sites and car accidents. Kev drops like a stone. Gloves go flying in Dylan’s peripheral vision as he rushes over, sliding to his knees, his hand finding Kev’s shoulder.

“Hey, Keaner,” he says, trying to sound calm even though his stomach is in his mouth. He looks from Kev’s fingers to his toes, hoping to catch a sign of movement, even a twitch. “Hey, med staff is on their way out. Talk to me, buddy.”

Kev groans, turning one foot to pick the toe of his blade into the ice. Dylan’s whole body sags in relief.

“Don’t move, kiddo, we’ll have a stretcher out in a sec, eh?” he says. Robin the head trainer is hurrying across the ice in her sneakers, her team not far behind. Kev moves a gloved hand weakly toward Dylan’s knee. Dylan takes it and squeezes it, holding on tight to steady himself against the onslaught of panic and rage inside him.

A fresh roar goes up from the crowd, not joyous like before, but a vast, hungry noise, sucking the shocked silence from the building. The fight has ended. Dylan looks up just in time to see the offending Sabre head straight down the tunnel. On the other side, Tanner staggers back to the Leafs’ bench, his face and hands smeared with blood. He grabs onto Mo for balance, who rubs his back and passes him to a trainer.

“Fuck,” says Dylan. “Fuck,”

“Wha’s wrong,” Kevin slurs.

“Don’t worry about it, buddy,” Dylan says, squeezing Kev’s glove one more time before making room for Robin and the crew. They take their time, getting close to ice level to talk to him and eventually easing him into a neck brace and onto the stretcher. Dylan hovers uselessly nearby, watching with Mikko at his elbow, unable to breathe until Kev is wheeled out of sight down the tunnel. The crowd gives a muted cheer of support. Mikko taps his stick against Dylan’s shin guards.

“You okay, bud?” You look rattled.”

Dylan shakes his head to clear it. “Yeah, yeah, I’m just — it’s tough to see, eh?”

He has seen so many injuries in his career, most of them mild, some of them awful. Just like any hockey player, he’s gotten used to it. It’s part of the sport, part of being an athlete. But even being used to it, no matter how many times you see a guy go down like that—

He was in Nashville when it happened. They had just come off the ice after a brutal game three, falling victim to a Fabbro hat trick that put them down 3-0 in the series. Their hopes of finally getting back out of the first round were crumbling. The game had been a melee of missed calls, elbows flying, sticks slashing, both teams boiling over in frustration.

It was Dylan’s first playoffs without Alex. He felt disconnected, and he was furious about that as much as the losing, the platonic ideal of each play feeling just out of reach and then haunting him with should-haves every night, a sleepless litany of the ways he made things worse for his team. It was exhausting. He swore, throwing his gloves into his stall and dropping into the seat with a huff. Pulled off his jersey, his elbow pads, his chest protector. Big breaths, pulling himself together, tempering his anger into something acceptable for the postgame media.

The questions, at least, were predictable: yes, he still believed in the team. A few bounces their way and any one of these games could have been theirs. They just had to take it one game, one period, one minute at a time. They knew the Predators well now; they hoped they could use that to come back.

“One last question, any thoughts on what happened with McDavid tonight?” someone asked. Dylan doesn’t know who. There was too much blood rushing in his ears for him to concentrate.

“Uh, no, kinda had my own game to worry about tonight. Thanks,” Dylan said. He raked his sweaty bangs off his forehead. Resisted the urge to scream.

Sulking in his stall as the media folks filtered out, though, Connor’s name filtered through the locker room chatter again and again. The Hawks’ head trainer and an assistant coach, talking quickly as they walked through the room. Alex Nylander and Carl Dahlstrom, whispering fast in Swedish like they didn’t want to get caught talking about something other than their own game, _McDavid_ the only recognizable word. Caggiula, sitting in his stall, watching something on his phone, eyes wide, mouth open.

Cold dread gripped Dylan’s chest. He dove into his bag to fish his phone out, fingers clumsy in unlocking it. There was a slew of texts, from Ryan, his mom, a bunch of friends. None of them thought to include a fucking link. Panic was rising in his throat by the time he found a video.

It was from the second period in Edmonton, only about half an hour ago. The Oilers were up 2-1 in both the game and the series, desperate to have something to show for their first trip to the postseason in several years. Connor took a pass from Caleb Jones and flew toward the goal, got jostled off-course by the defender, circled around to sauce a pass to his trailing winger. The puck left his stick and—

Dylan dry-heaved.

It replayed in slow motion: the other Ducks defenseman came out of nowhere, not even in frame until a split-second before he hit Connor. His elbow caught right under Connor’s visor, wrenching him into the glass. They both lost their footing, twisting, and the back of Connor’s head caught the boards on the way down. The Anaheim goalie said later that he heard two cracks: Connor’s head and Connor’s knee. He hit the ice and didn’t move. It took twenty minutes for them to get him onto the stretcher.

Dylan watched the clip five times before Alex Nylander sat down next to him, covering Dylan’s phone and hand with both of his own. Dylan hadn’t noticed he was shaking.

“Stromer, you gotta go shower, man,” he said gently. “Go home and get some rest, yeah?”

Dylan inhaled sharply. He had forgotten to breathe. “Yeah. Yeah, just lemme text Davo first.”

They win the game, but barely. It’s a chippy mess after they lose both rookies to concussion protocol. Dylan takes two stupid stick penalties and gets an earful from McFarland. Buffalo scores two goals in the back half of the third, but the Leafs dig in to hold them off. Kev’s goal stands as the game-winner. It doesn’t feel like much of a consolation.

In the locker room, Tanner fist-bumps each guy as they head to their stalls. He is already changed back into his suit, medical tape holding a splint over his swollen, purpling nose. He’s going to have two brutal black eyes by morning, but he’s not woozy anymore, at least, gingerly upbeat about the win, though his focus is clearly not one hundred percent in the room.

Kevin was taken to Toronto General. It’s doubtful they’ll see him for a couple days.

Dylan tries to rush through his postgame scrum, but every reporter has questions tonight. He tells them the hit was garbage and he expects a suspension. Cops to losing his cool with the penalties; he’s always been an emotional guy, gets a little too fired up sometimes. Rattles off the rote lines about being proud of the team for buckling down and getting the win. It’s tough to stay focused after seeing a teammate go down like that.

“Did you manage to say some encouraging words to Kevin before they got him off the ice?” asks Olivia from the _Globe_. Dylan likes her because she seems thoughtful, like she’s asking questions about humans instead of hockey, and generally tries to give thoughtful responses in return.

“I wish I had,” he says wryly, scratching behind his ear. “I was pretty rattled. I’ve seen buddies go down hard like that before and it’s, you know, it’s pretty scary. But obviously he knows we’ve got his back no matter what, and hopefully he’s back on his feet sooner than expected.”

Once free, Dylan slumps into his stall, leaning back and closing his eyes. He can’t stop wondering if Connor was watching. He wonders it often, knowing Connor sometimes watches his games, but tonight the question lingers like a bad taste at the back of his tongue. Maybe Dylan should text him to check in. But then again, if he wasn’t watching, he doesn’t need to know. And it’s not really Dylan’s business anyway.

“Stromer,” Mo says, startling Dylan from his thoughts. “You have a visitor outside.”

For one wild, stupid moment, Dylan is convinced that not only was Connor watching, he’s been in the arena the whole time. He lurches to his feet, but when he gets into the hallway of course it’s just Mikey McLeod, freshly showered in his suit pants and shirtsleeves, rocking on his feet with a wry smile.

“Not exactly our funnest one, eh?” he asks, and Dylan says, “fuck, man,” and wraps him in a hug. Dylan has needed a hug for days. Mikey squeezes him, snuffling against Dylan’s hair until Dylan laughs, weak and hoarse. They usually get dinner, but the Sabres are in and out of Toronto so quickly this trip that it wasn’t possible. Dylan was secretly glad about the excuse to avoid social activity until this moment, and the reminder of how reaffirming the presence of unconditional friendship can be.

“Good to see you, buddy,” Mikey says, clasping Dylan’s bicep when they pull apart. “You doing okay?”

It’s a complicated question with an answer that boils down to _not really_, but Dylan shrugs and goes with, “Okay enough.”

They don’t have long to chat, but it doesn’t matter. Mikey has always been an easy friend. They can not see each other for months, not text for weeks, and then apropos of nothing Dylan will have a meme in his inbox or shoot off a text because he sees something Mikey-related and everything is exactly the same as it’s always been. They’ve been friends for so long they can’t remember ever not being friends. It’s easy to find room for them in each other’s lives.

So they take their few minutes, and hug goodbye, and maybe Dylan clings just long enough that Mikey can tell that _okay enough_ is _not really_, because he presses his face into Dylan’s hair and murmurs, “Hey, call me sometime, eh?” before heading back to the visitors’ locker room.

Dylan should probably grab a bike for a few minutes before he showers, but between the media and Mikey it’s been long enough for his muscles to call it quits for the night. They are exhausted, and so is the rest of him. But Tanner is still sitting in his stall, wearing his suit, picking at a thin, fresh crust of blood under one nostril, so Dylan can’t go home yet.

He circles the logo on the floor to get to Tanner, trying not to wince when his hip twinges as he sits. Tanner has lost any buoyancy from earlier, his mouth drawn tight, his eyebrows worried. Blotchy dark arcs are settling in under his eyes like ink from a burst pen in a breast pocket. His nose is angry under the bandages. He has his phone out but he’s not doing anything with it, just opening apps and closing them again.

“How’s the face?” Dylan asks.

“Not so bad since the painkillers kicked in,” Tanner mumbles. He opens his text messages. Closes them. The knuckles of his right hand are bandaged, too, fingers puffy, bruises seeping down toward his wrist. Less gruesome than the face, but painfully familiar. It looks just like when Dylan punched a wall a couple summers ago. Or when Connor caught the boards with a right hook while he was trying to punch Bryson Cianfrone right before World Juniors a million years ago.

The look on Tanner's face is also painfully familiar: desperately worried but trying not to look it, because there are lines, and Tanner knows it. There are lines as to how worried you’re supposed to be for your teammate, how much it’s allowed to affect your day-to-day life. Injuries are part of the sport, after all.

Dylan puts a hand on the back of Tanner’s neck, squeezing gently. “Any word on Keaner?”

Tanner shakes his head. McFarland told them all after the game that Kev was awake and the hospital was running tests. They’ll have an update at practice tomorrow, but tomorrow can feel interminably far away sometimes.

With the world’s heaviest sigh, Tanner slumps against Dylan’s shoulder. His hair is damp through Dylan’s t-shirt. Dylan hums and rubs his back in big, slow circles, feeling strangely and suddenly and undeniably old. He’s not even thirty and it feels like he’s lived four lifetimes, like there are eons between him and the sad boy next to him. Dylan remembers when heartache was a fresh wound, a new hurt almost as thrilling as it was painful, and now it’s always just the same scab, peeling and scarring, picked at until it bleeds just to make sure it’s still there. He remembers the feeling of wild hope but he hasn’t visited it in years.

“It would be stupid to go to the hospital, right?” Tanner asks. “They probably don’t want visitors in the middle of the night.”

“They’re probably busy running their tests so they can get him better as quickly as possible,” Dylan says. He squeezes the back of Tanner’s neck again. “And you should get some rest, or your face is gonna stay swollen like that forever.”

“Pretty sure that’s not how it works,” Tanner mumbles, but he picks himself up, cradling his injured hand. He looks down at Dylan, lips pressed together like there are a thousand questions on the tip of his tongue jostling to be first in line when Tanner opens his mouth. The one that wins is: “Does it get easier? Seeing that happen to people you care about?”

“No.” Maybe Dylan should lie, but he won’t. “It’ll make you want to throw up every time.”

“Is that how—” Tanner starts, but shakes his head. “Never mind. I’m deciding he’s going to be okay.”

The NHL’s Christmas break is just enough time for all of the Strome brothers to gather in their parents’ house for approximately 48 hours. It’s a tight fit: Ryan, Sydney, and their three kids; Matt and his fiancee; and Dylan. Of course they could afford hotels no problem — or Dylan could just commute the half-hour from his condo — but no one wants to, because they get little enough family time as it is. Besides, Mom says, anyone who doesn’t stay in the house gets coal in their stockings.

A full-family Christmas isn’t as rare these days as it used to be, but it’s still novel enough that everyone gets hyped up about it. When they were younger, the holidays were often tied up with World Juniors tournaments, scattering the Strome boys across the globe. Even though they’ve aged out of those, their schedules don’t always leave enough wiggle room for a trip home to be worth it. One year, Sydney was too pregnant to travel; another, the newest baby was too new to fly, and they all went to Tampa instead of Mississauga. Christmas on the beach was nice, but nothing beats coming home.

Dylan picks everyone up from the airport on the morning of Christmas Eve. Living so close, he has been roped into helping decorate, helping shop, and now helping wrangle. He doesn’t mind; he likes being useful, and his parents have earned the right to avoid dealing with the mess that is Pearson during the holidays. Matt and Meg land first, so when Ryan’s family shows up everything quickly devolves into a tangled criss-cross of limbs as everyone tries to hug everyone else. Dylan scoops up Ryan and Sydney’s oldest kid, a perfect mini-Ryan with dark hair flopping in his face, and spins in a circle as the boy shrieks with laugher and clutches Dylan with sticky hands.

“Oof, we’re gonna have to start calling you Big John soon,” Dylan says, pretending to stagger under his weight.

“I’m the biggest John in my class,” Little John declares proudly. He’s just John, legally, but he’s been Little John since birth to differentiate from the other, larger John often present in their lives. Chrissie, the middle child, is already dozing on Matt’s shoulder, her face completely hidden by her giant fur-lined parka hood. Baby Chloe is watching everything with big eyes from her stroller as she gnaws on a bright blue teething ring.

“Should we grab a cab?” Meg asks. “We will not all fit in one car.”

“We will if we put Matt in the trunk,” Dylan says cheerfully. Matt sticks his tongue out. Little John bounces in Dylan’s arms and chants, “Uncle Matt in the trunk!”

What actually happens is they rent an SUV with all of the appropriate car seats for the kids, because that will make everyone’s lives much easier for the next two days. Ryan and Sydney drive that home, and Dylan takes Matt and Meg in his own car, relegating Matt to the back seat because he’s a gentleman like that. At home, they do the hello-hugs dance all over again and settle into the controlled chaos of a packed-house Christmas, prepping food for dinner, unpacking presents to stow under the tree, chasing the toddlers, cooing over the baby.

It starts snowing in the afternoon, fat fluffy flakes tumbling from the sky to cover the trampled remains of last week’s weather. Chrissie presses her face to the sliding back door, leaving tiny hand- and mouth-prints on the glass. Little John follows suit, unwilling to be left out of anything, even just snow-watching, and in doing so spots the old goals in the backyard. So of course they have to go play.

Dylan and his dad set the makeshift rink up a few days ago in anticipation of the Christmas crowd, shoveling the most of the snow away and stamping down the rest until the grass was covered in a thick, icy crust. You couldn’t skate on it, but you sure could slip and bust your ass on it.. The undersized goals have stood in the backyard for more than two decades, paint peeling, metal dinged, nets frayed and in need of replacement. The space is only eight or nine meters at its longest, but it was big enough to entertain the Strome boys and their friends growing up. Big enough for Dylan to stay out until he could barely see the pucks in the porchlight, refusing to go in until he beat Ryan, back when Ryan was still bigger than him and the torchbearer of all of Dylan’s aspirations.

Little John is a Tampa-blue marshmallow wrapped up in his winter gear, stomping and sliding around in his snow boots as he pushes pucks to Dylan with his mini-stick. At first it’s just the two of them, then Dylan’s mom and Sydney come out with Chrissie, who insists on playing even though she’s barely dexterous enough with her mittens on to hold a mini-stick. Little John is thrilled to have a protege, patiently readjusting her grip with his own clumsy gloved hands, explaining with urgent seriousness, “Like this, like Daddy does.”

Ryan emerges to find his kids playing two-on-two against his wife and brother, both of them feigning immense effort to keep the children from running up the score. Eventually, Matt appears so they can play three-on-three — Matt on the kids’ team, “because you’re still the baby,” Dylan coos at him. But he still lets them win.

The snow comes down, slow and steady, clinging to knit caps and eyelashes. Meg comes out to watch with a giant mug of steaming cocoa cupped between her hands, and Matt calls time-out to steal several sips and a kiss. Chrissie takes advantage of the break to flop down and make a snow angel. Ryan wraps himself around Sydney as she snaps pictures on her phone, pressing his cold nose into her neck until she yelps with laughter.

They could be a magazine spread. A perfect family Christmas. Three generations of snow-dusted Canadians having wholesome winter fun.

This is Dylan’s favorite thing: his family, together, steeped in love and joy. His most important people all within arms’ reach for hugging or holding or wrestling or punching in the shoulder when someone says something ridiculous. He sits on the ice and watches them, cold seeping through his jeans, his ass half-numb from being outside for so long. In this place, Dylan has never heard an unsupportive word. Has never been made to feel less than good enough. And yet there’s an ache he can’t shake, deep in his chest. It’s not pain, not exactly. It’s a physical, corporeal sadness, lodged between his heart and his lungs, squeezed with every breath. Dylan knows the shape of it like he knows his own hands. If there was a knife sharp enough to cut it out of him, Dylan would have the surgery in a second.

“Uncle Dylan,” Little John says, patting Dylan’s face with a comically large glove. “You look sad.”

Dylan blinks at him, then swipes him into his lap with one arm, bear-hugging him and blowing a raspberry on his head as he bursts into giggles.

“Only sad that you beat me so bad,” Dylan says. Little John beams, punching the air in victory.

Soon after, Dylan’s dad hollers from the back door that dinner is almost ready, and everyone piles back inside, shaking off snow and shedding layers. They crowd around the table, booster seats wedged between the dining chairs. It takes some strategic shifting, but they fit Chloe’s high chair at the table, even though the jut of the tray takes up precious side dish real estate. Good thing Dylan didn’t bring anyone home, Ryan jokes, or else they’d have to banish Matt and the kids to a separate table.

“Yeah, Dyl, stay unloveable,” Matt chirps. Dylan sticks his tongue out. Chrissie also sticks her tongue out. Chloe burbles in appreciation and sticks her tongue out, too. It’s nice to have people on his side.

Little John and Chrissie are sharing an air mattress in Dylan’s room. They’re thrilled about bunking with Uncle Dylan, and as such they don’t want to sleep as much as they want to bounce around speculating about when Santa will arrive. Dylan bribes them into settling down with the promise of a bedtime story and, despite their protests, they pass out about five pages into _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_. Dylan quietly tucks an extra blanket around their tiny sleeping forms. They’ve had a long day for such small people.

But Dylan is not blessed with the same onset of exhaustion. He turns off the lights and climbs into bed, leaving the door cracked because that’s how Chrissie likes it. For a while, he lies there listening to the kids’ soft baby snores, trying to remember how long it’s been since he shared a bedroom with anyone. Not even a bed. Just a bedroom.

“Stay unloveable, Dyl,” he murmurs into the darkness. Teenage Team Canada John Tavares stares down at him from the far wall. He really should take that poster down.

Dylan hasn’t heard from Connor since the documentary interview, but he hasn’t stopped thinking about him, either. He hasn’t stopped missing him for even one second.

A glance at his phone tells him it’s still early, in adult time. The Strome household’s perception of time has been warped by the readdition of children. No wonder Dylan isn’t tired.

_Merry christmas lil cutie_, he texts Alex, and then scrolls through his contacts, shooting messages to friends scattered across the continent. He skips Connor, knowing he’ll come back to him. It’s all a process to pretend getting around to him is natural.

Finally: _Merry xmas davo, hope your having a good time with your family._

Dylan’s childhood bedroom is a graveyard of his teenage self. There are Leafs posters on the walls: Mats Sundin, Matty Stajan. A good Mississauga boy, Matty Stajan. An Otters pennant. A glossy blown-up photo of the Golden Goal. By his desk, there’s a corkboard with years’ worth of Comi Cup championship photos tacked onto it, and tucked between two of them, Dylan and Connor at the lake, squinting into the sun, arms loose around each other’s shoulders. A framed family photo, courtesy of his mom.

_Pretty good but cams kid is teething and keeps biting me_, Connor says. Then, _Did matt and ry both get home this year?_

They did, Dylan tells him. Got in this morning, kids and all. Kids that are now sleeping angelically in Dylan’s room after a day of charming shenanigans.

_Tell everyone merry christmas for me_, says Connor.

_Will do_, Dylan texts back, even though he probably won’t.

He eases himself out of bed, tiptoeing around the air mattress and into the hallway. The light is still on in Ryan’s room, a golden stripe leaking out under the door, soft voices coming from inside. If it were just Ryan in there, Dylan would be so tempted to let himself in so he could lie with his head in Ryan’s lap for a while, talking about his feelings. Ryan is a good listener. But Dylan can’t make Ryan’s wife and baby compete for his attention on Christmas Eve.

He sneaks downstairs instead. It’s dark, but he knows the way by heart, padding quietly to the living room. Dylan expects it to be deserted, but his mom is still there, stowing some final gifts under the tree. She smiles when she sees him, soft in the warm golden glow of the tree lights.

“All the babes finally down?”

“The ones in my room are.” Dylan crosses the room and wraps her in a hug, for no reason other than she’s there and he can. She hums, rubbing his back, rocking the pair of them back and forth. It’s enough to take Dylan back in time, just for a moment, to when happiness was far less complicated.

“It’s good to have you around this year, kiddo,” his mom says. She pulls away, ruffles his hair. “I’m glad you’re not sick of us yet.”

“Not gonna happen.” Dylan grins. “Too much free food.”

She shakes her head. “Get some sleep, those kids are gonna have you up way earlier than you want.”

But Dylan isn’t ready to sleep yet. He stands alone in the dim light, at a loss for what to do with himself, then he wanders, slowly, meticulously, taking his time to look at each family photo his eyes have learned to skim past over the years. Himself as a toddler, Matt as an infant, Ryan with arms that won’t quite fit around both of them despite his trying. The three of them, older, squinting as their mom makes them pose by the lake, the sun glaring so brightly that the water behind them looks white. A series of them on their draft days, professionally framed and matted. He touches the Coyotes jersey and thinks about Connor backstage afterward, throwing himself at Dylan and holding on so tight it was hard to breathe, murmuring into Dylan’s ear, “I made them let me stay to watch you. I didn’t want to miss it.”

Dylan goes to the kitchen to check, but of course the book isn’t where he last saw it. That was weeks ago. So he goes back to the living room to drag his finger along the spines on the bookshelf, and there it is, wedged between a well-worn copy of _The Joy of Cooking_ and one of the Harry Potters. There’s no bookmark in it anymore.

Young Connor smiles up from the cover. He’s Little John’s age in the picture, maybe a little older, or maybe it just seems that way because even then, even smiling, he always looked a little serious around the eyes. Well — almost always. Some of Dylan’s proudest moments, once upon a time, were making Connor laugh so hard Gatorade came out his nose, or making him collapse in giggles when Dylan found a ticklish spot during a wrestling match. Making him smile, genuinely, half-hidden in his pillow, just before he drifted off to sleep.

He still hasn’t read past the first page of the _Erie_ section, but instead of picking up where he left off, Dylan flips through the book, skimming chapter titles, until his thumb snags on the section in the middle where the pages turn glossy and full-color. There are a couple few photos, from Connor’s infancy up through his NHL career, labeled with succinct captions and page numbers to tie them back to their parts of the story.

There’s Connor as a baby, being held by his mother. Early hockey photos, from initiation to novice to atom. Connor, seven years old, passed out on his bed in nearly full gear, one hand still curled around his kid-sized hockey stick. Dylan flips forward a few pages, watching Connor age into a teenager. There’s Connor and Dylan and Andre, squished into a booth at Chipotle that doesn’t quite hold all of them. Andre has his arms around both of them, beaming at the camera, half in their laps; Dylan is pulling a face, his nose scrunched up; Connor is reaching past Andre to steal chips from Dylan’s basket, a pleased little smile on his face. He doesn’t seem aware there’s a picture being taken.

And, of course, plenty of game photos. Connor’s first Otters game. Connor scoring, Connor celebrating. Connor in red and white, raising the World Juniors trophy. Connor with Betz and the Raddyshes, hanging out at a Baskin Robbins in Windsor, looking like the world’s most normal kid. Connor asleep on the bus, his head on Dylan’s shoulder while Dylan gives the camera a long-suffering look. Connor being hugged by his father after they lost in the playoffs the May of their draft year.

The Erie photos end and the Edmonton ones begin. The shift is dramatic, and not just in the color scheme, the Otters’ dark blues and golds giving way to garish splashes of orange. These are almost all professional photos, crisp and balanced, not pictures snapped on friends’ phones and shared in group chats. There are Oilers games, all-star games. Art Ross trophies at the NHL awards. Connor and Taylor Hall with their gold medals in Moscow. Connor gets older, his cheekbones sharper, his shoulders wider. His eyes more tired, maybe, or maybe that’s just Dylan projecting.

Dylan should expect it, but his breath catches in his throat when he turns the page. The photo is iconic: it’s in the Hockey Hall of Fame right now, blown up life-size in the back of a Team Canada showcase. Him and Connor in Helsinki. They’re on the ice, moments after that last buzzer went, helmets and gloves strewn across the ice as the team riots in victory. The two of them are flushed and sweaty and deliriously happy. Connor’s hands are fisted in Dylan’s jersey, and Dylan is cupping Connor’s face, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

The caption reads: Getting to play with Stromer again was the happiest I’d been in a long time. (World Championships, 2024, Helsinki, Finland.) — _page 217._

Dylan closes his eyes. His body aches with memories.

_Who needs hockey? You have me_.

The light of the tree is enough to read by. He sits down on the couch and turns back to ERIE.

Dylan remembers the days following the hit with painful clarity. Some people talk about grief blurring things together, leaving yearning gaps in memories, but Dylan remembers every detail.

When Connor didn’t text back, Dylan texted Cam. He texted a few of his and Connor’s mutual friends — _any word on Davo yet?_ Since Darnell was traded to Columbus a few years ago, Dylan didn’t know anyone else on the Oilers well enough to have their number. Maybe a friend of a friend did. Someone had to know.

He paced his apartment all night, too restless and nauseous to sleep. NHL Network cycled through the night’s game recaps four times before Dylan turned it off, unable to stomach one more montage of Connor lying motionless on the ice. More than once, he started typing a tweet: _To whoever asked me about davo after the game tonight, I hadn’t seen what happened yet_.

When the horizon was turning gray with the promise of dawn over Lake Michigan, Cam finally texted back: _Docs running lots of tests. Will prob be here for a while. I’ll let him know you texted_.

Dylan laid down on his bed, finally, his whole self sagging into the mattress. Cam’s message was barely news, and there was not one part of Dylan that felt truly relieved, but at least it was something. He didn’t think he would sleep, but three hours later he woke up on top of the covers, alarm blaring from the phone still clutched in his hand. His body was sore with fatigue, and it took a full minute for his brain to come back online and remind him why he felt so shitty.

No new messages. No updates from the Oilers except to say that they would share updates when they had them. Dylan typed a new message to Cam, but deleted it instead of sending it. Surely the McDavids had enough to deal with right now without him haranguing them for information. So he dragged himself up and to practice, where he played like shit, sleep-deprived with a head full of anxiety and dry cotton. His teammates knocked each other playfully into the boards, and he dry-heaved, bile rising in his throat.

“Stromer, you good?” Alex Nylander asked, clipping Dylan on the butt with his stick.

“Yeah, I'm okay,” Dylan said, and then puked on the ice.

At least there was a hockey news headline not about Connor for a few hours after that.

They lost their next game, swept out of the playoffs. Dylan barely felt the defeat. He spent all his time those first few days wondering if he should text Cam again, counting the seconds and thinking that surely, at the end of this minute, there would be an update. After that last loss, he sat in his car in the parking garage at the United Center for over an hour, crying and googling flights to Edmonton and getting halfway through the booking process twice before talking himself out of it.

He still can’t decide if he regrets not going. Maybe it’s better that he knows how things would go with the choice in Connor’s hands.

It’s well into the dark, early hours of Christmas Day when Dylan reaches the part he’s been waiting for since that night in his condo with John. He knows it’s coming from the way Connor tells stories about the junior team they shared, but nothing can prepare him for seeing the words in print, knowing thousands of people have already read them.

> Anyone who’s reading this who has ever played with Dylan is probably nodding along the entire time. To be Dylan’s friend or teammate is to have a constant ally, even when you don’t feel like you deserve one. Erie loved Dylan, probably more than it loved me, which is how it should have been anyway. I believe that anywhere Dylan wound up would have loved him, because no matter where he ended up he would have poured his heart out for them, but Erie was the lucky city who got him. They were way luckier to get him than they were to get me.
> 
> Sorry, this is going to be sappy. I have never been very good at making friends, partly due to shyness, partly because I was always looking past people for the next step to what I wanted. In Dylan, I found someone I couldn’t look past, who wouldn’t let me shy away, and who would look with me toward the future. We stayed up all night sometimes, talking about our futures. They are nothing like we imagined, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are parts of me that were built those nights, parts of me that exist because Dylan spoke them into existence in the dark when our billet parents thought we were already asleep.
> 
> I loved Erie, but everything I loved about Erie could easily be found in Dylan, too. For some reason, he loved me back enough to lead where I couldn’t, in ways that taught me instead of making me look unqualified. People talk a lot about the hand I had in turning the last-place Otters around, but there’s a reason Dylan is the one who led them to a championship. He feels loyalty down to his bones.

Two fat, silent tears drip from his chin onto the page, blurring the dark ink. His fingers itch to text Connor again: _You know I still love you right?_ But his phone is upstairs, and his legs are too heavy with heartache to get him to it, so he lies down on the couch with Connor’s book in his arms and waits for the sun to rise.

When the team returns after the short break, Kev is in the locker room again and spirits are noticeably higher. He isn’t cleared to skate yet, but he is cleared to look at his phone screen for more than two minutes at a time, which he announced through some creative meme usage in the team’s group text. His arm is still in a sling — that wound up being the worst part of the injuries, his shoulder wrenched by the hit — but he doesn’t have to wear it all the time. Only like 90% of the time. He is thrilled by these developments.

Tanner’s black eyes have faded to mottled yellow-green blotches. He has to wear a cage for a couple more weeks until his nose is healed, which he is not thrilled about, mostly because the guys keep asking if he got lost on his way bantam. He’s been subdued since his fight, but now, standing with Kevin as they lob tape balls toward the trash can across the room, he’s his buoyant self again. Dylan is feeling gingerly optimistic himself after a good cry and a lot of family time, like his chest cavity has been scrubbed out, fresh and clean and a little raw. There’s a bubble of hope inside him that he’s trying not to poke at too hard, because if he does it will undoubtedly pop.

They get one day of practice before the Habs come to town. The rivalry is fierce this year: both games so far have gone to overtime, and both ended with a few dozen penalty minutes per team. Kappy had an unlikely hat trick the last time they played, and Dima had four apples, and they still only won with twenty seconds left in overtime. Montreal was pissed about it — they challenged for goalie interference, and probably should have gotten it, but the goal stood. They’re going to be out for blood this time.

Dylan is about to head to the rink when he gets a text from Connor: _Coming to the game tonight, is it ok if I stop by to say hi?_

The familiar wave of wounded anger Dylan gets around Connor washes over him, but once it ebbs, there’s a single stubborn butterfly fluttering in his stomach.

_Sure_, he shoots back. He assumes Connor is doing another book thing. It seems unlikely that he’d go purely for the pleasure of watching, but it’s possible. Actually — he’s probably doing promo stuff for the documentary. It’s slated for release just before the playoffs, but according to the wonder twins’ locker room gossip, TSN is already dropping the occasional piece of teaser footage. Dylan hasn’t shown up in any of it yet, judging from how Kev and Tanner haven’t mauled him yet.

But he puts all of that out of his mind for the game. The Habs aren’t particularly good this season, which makes it all the more frustrating that the Leafs can’t seem to trounce them like every other team in the league does. Dylan is locked in by puck drop, determined to give his team something good and to not think about Connor watching from wherever in the arena he is. Probably one of the boxes. He wouldn’t survive sitting in the stands.

They get off to a quick start with goals from Mikko and Mo in the first six minutes. In the seventh minute, Drouin scores for Montreal. In the tenth minute, Kerfoot drops the gloves when a Canadien takes a headshot at Tanner. By the fifteenth, the game is tied again.

Early in the second, Dylan takes an outlet pass from Mikko and goes full-speed down the middle of the ice: dekes around Rezzetta, tries to split the defense, doesn’t quite shake one. Puts his hip into the guy and spins to look for a trailer. No one there. The puck is dangling on the end of his stick, but he’s going to lose his leverage in about half a second, so he plants an edge in the ice and twists, whipping it toward the net. It pings into the top left corner.

And the crowd goes wild.

Three minutes later, he gets the butt-end of a Montreal stick to the face. The kid attached to the stick, Montreal’s new wunderkind, the one bright spot in their garbage season, babbles a wide-eyed apology as he’s ushered to the box. Dylan will forgive him later, when his entire face isn’t a mushroom cloud of pain. His head spins as he picks himself up, leaving a spatter of crimson blood on the ice, but it passes, and he heads straight back to the locker room to get patched up.

There are fourteen penalty minutes in the third period. All of them are minors, because the referees have decided no one is allowed to touch each other. It’s probably for the best. The important thing is that the score holds.

Final: 3-2, Toronto.

Dylan winces his way through his postgame interviews, trying not to touch the fresh stitches under his left eye. The anesthetic wore off halfway through the third period and the painkillers haven’t kicked in yet. His cheek is swollen and red, just starting to bruise. At least his cheekbone is intact. The press takes pity on him, keeping it short. When they’re finished, Connor has texted to say he’s waiting outside the locker room, but Dylan should take his time, Connor knows he has stuff to do.

Dylan glances around at the media members still clustered around his teammates, and slips outside as casually as possible. He’s not being paranoid. It’s okay if people see him talking to Connor. He just doesn’t want it to be a _thing_.

As promised, Connor is waiting. He’s hovering near the wall in jeans and the same soft flannel he was wearing at the studio, texting with half an eye on the door.

“Shit,” he says when he sees Dylan’s face.

“You should see the other guy,” Dylan jokes grimly. He shuffles over, hands in his hoodie pocket.

“It didn’t look that bad from the box.” Connor frowns, lifting a hand like he’s going to reach for the wound, but Dylan winces, and he pulls away. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Just tender,” Dylan says, shrugging it off. It’s easier than explaining how every time Connor touches him, he has to do another autopsy on his feelings. “So what’d TSN drag you here for tonight?”

Connor scuffs a foot against the floor, his shoulders inching up around his ears. “They didn’t drag me here for anything. I just kinda missed you, so. I wanted to come.”

“Oh,” says Dylan. He expects his anger to flare up, but instead there’s a pang of fragile longing. The edge of a hunger he has tried not to think about for a very long time. Connor, shy about missing him, less than an arm’s reach away. Dylan has dreamt about this. He takes a breath. “Well, did you appreciate the show?”

“Yeah, I mean, it was a good game.” Connor offers a small smile. “Kinda rough, but. The good guys won, so that was nice.”

“Barely.” Dylan tries to pull a face, touching his cheek. “Woulda liked to make it happen with a few less casualties.”

“Eh, it’s fine, your face was never your selling point,” Connor says. Dylan laughs, the sound surprised out of him.

“That’s rude, Davo,” he says, but Connor looks pleased, his eyes crinkling at the corners. It’s an unexpectedly warm, familiar expression that sets off alarm bells in Dylan’s head, but it’s muffled, far away. Too easy to ignore.

They chat for a few minutes about safe things. Dylan’s season so far, Connor’s last book signing. Both of them roll their eyes when the nosy guy from the _Star_ snaps their picture from across the hall. One of the Habs trainers, who worked with Team Canada for years, stops by to say a quick hello. John appears briefly to deadpan about Connor being good luck in that way he has where it's never clear if he's joking. He shakes Connor’s hand and squeezes Dylan around the shoulders before he leaves. It feels almost normal.

When the conversation runs out, Connor hesitates before he asks, “Hey, um, how’s that kid who got hit real bad the other week?”

“Kev? He’s okay, given the circumstances. Gonna be out for a while, though.” Dylan frowns, then winces again as the expression tugs at his stitches. “I kinda hoped you didn’t see that.”

“I had the game on at home,” Connor says, looking past Dylan toward the locker room. There’s a furrow between his brows, his teeth worrying his lower lip. It’s the look he wears when he’s not sure if something is a good idea, but he asks anyway: “Do you think it would be okay if I wished him a good recovery?”

Dylan’s eyebrows go up. “I think he might lose his mind, but I don’t think it would hurt anything.”

So he sticks his head back in the locker room to call Kev over from where he’s trying to prove his fitness by offering everyone piggyback rides, and Kev sticks his tongue out at Dylan for interrupting, but he comes, and then he stumbles over his own feet when he sees why he’s been summoned. Connor manages to bite back his laugh. Dylan does not.

It’s a fairly short conversation. Connor asks about Kev’s injuries and Kev tells him all the details of his hospital visit and his doctors’ prognosis, his rehab plan, his goal dates. It’s sweet, the way he so readily opens up, stars in his eyes, thrilled that his idol is even the slightest bit interested in his well-being. Dylan watches, mostly; there’s nothing for him to contribute here. He watches Connor listen intently, his eyes not leaving Kevin, so serious about making sure this banged-up rookie feels listened to. There are shades there of the captain that Dylan misses so much, and shades of the friend, too. There are memories upon memories of Dylan feeling so special for Connor looking at him like that, when his gaze slid so easily over other people, uninterested or too skittish to let them connect.

When they’re finished, Connor’s shakes Kev’s hand and warmly wishes him the best. Kev thanks him with utmost professionalism, then throws his good arm around Dylan and makes a high-pitched happy noise in his ear before running back into the locker room.

“Wow.” Dylan shakes his head. He can’t help grinning, despite everything. “You realize you just made his life, right?”

Connor shrugs. “I just wanted to make sure he was okay.”

“That was really nice of you,” Dylan says. “Really. He and our other rookie completely idolize you, they’re going to talk about this for months.”

“It was nothing,” says Connor, letting the praise slide off him like oil over water. He looks at Dylan, then at the locker room door, then at Dylan again. Tugs at the cuffs of his flannel shirt, tucks his hands into his pockets. Clears his throat and asks, “Why did you hope I didn’t see that game?”

Dylan glances around before he answers. “It just reminded me of — you know. I just figured you wouldn’t want to be reminded of that.”

He doesn’t say: if it made me want to vomit, I was afraid of what it might do to you. I was afraid if you remembered that night too vividly, you’d disappear again. Connor looks surprised, though, and takes long enough to find a reply that Dylan barrels past him with a topic change.

“So how’s the documentary?”

“Oh, uh.” Connor shrugs, too casual. “It’s good. We’re working on the Hockey Canada stuff, which is kind of a pain because the coverage is spottier for Worlds, but it’s still good.”

“That’s good,” Dylan says. Too casual. He swallows. It feels like the air is being sucked out of the space between them. “Look, I should probably hit the bike before my body decides it doesn’t want to work anymore, but thanks for coming by. I mean it.”

“Yeah, for sure,” says Connor, mustering up a smile. “Good luck on your trip this weekend.”

“Thanks.” Dylan should leave, then, but he’s rooted to the floor. His brain is telling his feet to turn and walk away and they just aren’t listening. This is Connor, less than an arm’s reach away, giving him the smile that makes him want to stay. Dylan can only walk away so many times. He lets out a shaky breath and steps forward, reaching.

Connor sinks into the hug, his arms winding tight around Dylan, fingers curling into the fabric of Dylan’s hoodie. He squeezes. Dylan breathes. Connor’s hair tickles his cheek, and he turns his nose into it. He can’t decide if Connor smells the same as he remembers. Maybe he just doesn’t remember like he thought he did. Connor’s mouth is warm against his shoulder. He counts to five in his head, slowly, then makes himself let go.

He says, “I’ll text you later, okay?”

The next morning, Dylan’s left cheek has blossomed into a grotesque collage of violent purples. Moving his head too fast makes him woozy, and he’s forced to sit out practice and video review. There's not another game for two days, at least, so he doesn't have to push through it to prove he's functional. And they’re not flying anywhere for almost a week. Flying with a head injury is the worst.

_Ur not gonna be to concussed for the game right?????_ Matt texts as Dylan is laying on the couch, an arm thrown over his eyes to keep the light out. It leaves Dylan lost for a moment, until he remembers that the game in a couple days is against the Flyers. He’s had it circled on his calendar since the beginning of the season, just like all the brothers’ games. His brain just isn’t online today.

Dylan uncovers one eye, squinting at the phone screen to type his response.

_Too soon to tell_, he manages, and goes back to trying to sleep the injury away. It doesn’t work very well. He wakes up in the late afternoon when the sun glares obnoxiously through the sliding glass door to his balcony, glinting sharply off the railing and prying his reluctant eyelids open. Dylan groans and rolls off the couch, catching himself on his hands and knees on the floor. His head spins momentarily; he digs his fingers into the carpet. The stitches under his eye are uncomfortably tight.

“Shit,” he mumbles, groping blindly for his phone. It’s nearly dead, but there’s enough juice for him to shoot off a text to Robin letting her know someone on the medical team needs to examine his face tomorrow. Then, slowly, he gets to his feet, gets to the kitchen, grabs his prescription painkillers and a cold Gatorade, and takes his pathetic body to bed. It’s going to take him forever to fall asleep again, but at least it’s dark and the pillows are soft.

Dylan has had enough concussions to know this will pass in a few days, but that doesn’t make him hate it less. Normal injuries he can deal with. It’s easy to track the progress of a sprained ankle or broken finger. Brains get better on their own ineffable timelines, and it’s annoying as hell. For now, all he can do is lie in the dark and resist the urge to entertain himself with his phone or television, since screens are making him nauseous, leaving him with the grand option of his own thoughts.

At the forefront: Connor. Always Connor. Connor in Erie, squeezing Dylan’s hand under the table at Chipotle while their friends chattered around them. Connor in Florida, catching Dylan in a flying hug on draft day. Connor on a bridge in Helsinki, looking past Dylan into the vast expanse of dark water, dotted along the edges with the lights of moored boats.

Connor, coming to the game because he missed Dylan too much to stay away. Connor’s arms winding tentatively around him, the relieved exhale of the space between them closing. Connor saying, “It’s about more than just being sorry.” The way he holds himself when he’s expecting Dylan to unload his grievances, like a martyr who wants to deserve it, and the way Dylan wants to hurt him so badly sometimes it makes his chest ache. Because that would be fair, right?

And then there’s the creeping thought he can’t shake: maybe he deserved it. Because of the time his first year pro when Connor texted him, _it really kinda sucks here_, and Dylan responded with, _dude at least ur in the nhl_. Or the time Dylan spent half a season answering Connor’s texts hours late, saying, _sorry was hanging with brinks_, because Connor had new people to lean on and Dylan was trying to wean himself off of needing to be needed. Or the time Connor called him three times in one night and he let them all go to voicemail, not because he was busy, but because the week before Leon Draisaitl was kissing Connor’s cheek on Snapchat and Dylan was still smarting with jealousy.

If the world takes someone away from you, is it better to hold on until you’re aching and exhausted from the effort, or is it better to amputate quickly? If you pour your heart into trying ninety percent of the time but give into petty impulses the other ten percent, does it count as trying at all? Can he really blame Connor for taking the chance to make a clean cut?

This is how they wound up on the bridge in Helsinki: They had won their gold medals hours ago. In the morning, Connor would fly home, and Dylan would fly to Santorini to meet Ryan and Sydney for a week of vacation. Half of Team Canada had to be at the airport early, and most of them weren’t bothering to sleep. Dylan wouldn’t have been able to sleep if he tried. No one in their group spoke Finnish, but the bars they wound up in spoke enough English and enough hockey to keep the beers coming late into the night.

Dylan had been nursing the same drink for an hour. Connor was at the crossroads between tipsy and tired, his cheeks flushed with uneven pink blotches. Jaret Anderson-Dolan ordered another round of shots for the team, and they decided to go for a walk instead.

An incomplete list of the things they did not talk about on the streets of Helsinki at 2AM, or anywhere else for that matter:

  * How during the entire season leading up to this tournament, they exchanged a total of eighteen text messages and zero phone calls.
  * How the season before, it was thirty-two texts and one call, not that Dylan was counting.
  * How, when they arrived in Helsinki, they had not seen each other at a non-hockey event for two years.

They came to the bridge, the broad, flat, white-stone one that stretches across the narrow part of Kaisaniemi Bay. _Pitkäsilta_. Dylan looked it up later. Apparently a major landmark, but in the moment, it was just where their feet led them, a quiet spot over the water without another soul in sight. Connor rested his elbows on the railing, looking out over the bay, and Dylan stood and watched him, wondering if this, now, with gold in their pockets, was finally good enough.

Connor said, “Did you ever think we’d be here?”

Dylan could have asked him to clarify: be where? This country, this city, this tournament? On this bridge thousands of kilometers from home, alone in the middle of a late spring night, tired to their bones with no plans to sleep before the sun comes up? Playing for Canada together, living and breathing the same goals again, flying on the ice together one more time? But it didn’t really matter, because all the answers were the same, so. “Not really, no.”

“I thought about it every time they asked me to come,” Connor said. “I’d be like, okay, here’s the roster they have, here’s the teams still left, they’ll probably invite these guys but maybe if one of them says no they’ll ask Stromer to come.”

“Yeah, well.” Dylan leaned back against the railing, looking up. Even with the light pollution from the city, stars winked back at him in the crisp northern sky. “I wasn’t really worth inviting for a while there.”

Connor rolled his eyes. “You were in a slump. Everyone knew you were good.”

Not true, but not worth fighting about.

Connor looked over at him, his smile soft enough to soothe the prickle of Dylan’s ire. He dug into his coat pocket for his medal and held it up by the ribbon, the gold glinting warmly in the streetlight. “Not bad, eh?”

“You’re not bored of winning those yet?” Dylan asked.

“Nah, not yet.”

Connor took the ribbon in both hands, sliding them apart to open the loop, and Dylan bowed instinctively as Connor slid it over his head. The ribbon settled smooth and soft on the back of his neck, cool despite having been in Connor’s pocket all evening. Connor slid his fingers down along it until they reached the medal. He tugged gently, his knuckles brushing where it fell against Dylan’s solar plexus.

“I was gonna say no this year until they said they invited you,” Connor said, his eyes cast down at the medal in his hands. “I was just — tired. I was gonna say no. But.”

He met Dylan’s gaze, and Dylan was so convinced in that moment that Connor was going to kiss him that when he didn’t, it felt like the bridge had fallen out from under him.

Connor leaned his forehead against Dylan’s and breathed, eyes closed. Dylan, for once in his life, did not cry. Barely.

“Hey,” he said, when he thought he could speak without his voice sticking in his throat. “You can’t go home without one of these.”

He took his own medal from his coat pocket and hung it around Connor’s neck. Connor smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and said, “Thanks, I’ll cherish it forever.”

Dylan wants to know if Connor remembers.

He reaches for his phone, remembers that it’s dead, and fumbles for the charger until he gets it plugged in and turned on, wincing at the light from the screen.

“Hey Siri, call Davo,” he mumbles. Puts it on speaker. Listens to it ring.

“_You’ve reached four-one-six_—”

Well, there’s no fucking way he’s leaving a voicemail. He hangs up and mashes his face into his pillow, groaning, then rolls away with a grunt when he accidentally presses on his stitches. What an idiot.

On top of the comforter, his phone lights up with an incoming call. Dylan reaches for it, flopping onto his back. His head spins; he closes his eyes.

“Davo?” he asks, voice raspy.

“Did you just call me on purpose?” Connor asks. He sounds confused and half-asleep. “Is everything okay?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Dylan breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth. It helps with the nausea.

“You know it’s one o’clock in the morning, right?”

“I did not know that,” Dylan says. “I’m a little concussed and time is weird. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” There’s a pause. A long one. The room settles, quiet darkness curling around Dylan. A nervous question: “Why did you call?”

“Because,” says Dylan. He touches his face carefully, fingertips brushing over the line of stitches under his eye. He’s tempted to press down, to see how sharp the pain is, to see if he can stand it. He can hear Connor waiting for the rest of his answer. “Do you remember that night in Helsinki? When we walked out on the bridge?”

“You mean right after we won Worlds? Because yeah, Dyl, that was memorable.”

He’s trying to sound casual about it, but Dylan knows him too well. He’s guarded; he’s nervous. He doesn’t like not knowing what to expect. He’s still not used to Dylan being an unknown quantity, and something about that is distantly satisfying.

“I was just thinking about it,” Dylan says. “And I wondered if you remembered.”

Another pause. “Yeah, I remember.”

“You still have my medal?”

“Of course I do,” Connor says softly.

“I mean, you threw away your whole hockey life, it’s not really ‘of course’ anything,” Dylan says. His voice catches at the end of the sentence, and, fuck, of course his eyes are wet. “Jesus, Davo. Sometimes I don’t know if you remember anything about us.”

“I mean,” Connor says. He manages to be so many things in just a few words: wounded, tired, stubborn and sorry. “I did write a whole book about it.”

Dylan huffs an almost-laugh.

“I told you I’m sorry,” says Connor, a little strained, like there’s a lump in his throat, and a little muffled, like half his face is pressed into his pillow. Dylan can’t help picturing him, his eyelids heavy with sleep, lashes casting long shadows in the light of the phone. Maybe he reached for his reading glasses when the phone rang, and now they’re wedged crookedly on his nose from the way he’s curled on his side in a bed too big for one person. Maybe he didn’t, and his eyes are still closed, because he wants to hope this was a dream when he wakes up in the morning. Maybe he feels haunted, too.

When Dylan doesn’t respond, Connor pushes on. “Look, I get it if that’s not enough.”

Dylan swallows hard.

“I started reading it,” he says. He knows he sounds like he’s about to cry. Hopefully he has earned the leniency of it going unmentioned. “I’m almost to draft day. And I looked at the pictures.”

Nothing but the sound of Connor breathing.

“You left out a lot of stuff,” Dylan says. Sniffles loudly, wipes his eyes. His headache is starting to come back, a low throb behind his eye.

“Yeah,” Connor says. “Some stuff isn’t everyone’s business.”

In other words: he could write about Dylan as his friend and his rock, about Dylan as a teammate and a leader, but not about Dylan as the person whose hoodie he stole because being wrapped in it made him feel better after a bad loss. He could write about staying up all night talking, but not about his lips against Dylan’s palm in the dark. The book, so far, has been the story Dylan knows washed over with melancholy, sometimes wistful, sometimes bitter. “Honest and important,” the book jacket review said, and Dylan begrudgingly sees why. When you put that much pressure on a kid — when they’re chosen at such a young age to be everything to everyone — it does something to them. Dylan knew this at sixteen, at seventeen and eighteen and twenty-five and beyond, but reading it in Connor’s careful words is something else, even for him.

But at the same time, the book is not the whole story. It doesn’t give away any parts of Dylan that he would want to package and dole out himself, if he ever wanted people to know them.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s really not.”

He wants to say: _you know I still love you, right?_ and he wants to say: _I don’t know what I want from you anymore and that’s harder for me than trying to hate you._

God, his head feels like it’s attached all wrong.

“Can I ask you something?” Connor asks, then, with barely a beat for an answer, “Do you still have mine?”

Connor’s gold medal from Helsinki is in a box in the back of Dylan’s closet labeled ‘hockey stuff’, along with an assortment of other memorabilia Dylan hasn’t figured out what to do with. All the stuff that falls in the murky area where you don’t want to display it but you don’t want to throw it away, either. He keeps thinking he should take it to his parents’ house so he doesn’t have to deal with it.

“Of course I do,” he says.

Connor doesn’t respond right away. Dylan rolls onto his side, letting the muscle memory of knees bumping his under the covers wash over him. He spreads his hand out and slides it over the cool half of the mattress. The throb behind his eye is worse, now. He probably should take more painkillers and lie still in the dark for a while.

“I’m glad,” Connor says. “I thought you might have dumped it at your parents’ or something. Not that I would blame you.”

“Can I ask you something?” Dylan asks.

“Of course.”

“Did you think about me at all before you stopped talking to anyone?”

Again, smaller: “Of course.”

“And you decided, what? Fuck Stromer, I don’t need him, I have the Nuge?”

“No.” Connor sighs. He sounds like he’s been expecting this conversation, and he’s torn between relief and dread now that it’s here. “I was in a bad place. You know, mentally. I made some decisions about what I needed to do, and I knew it would hurt some people, and I knew you’d probably be pissed at me, but.” The words are exhausted and rehearsed. It means something, at least, that he’s been thinking about how to say this. “I don’t know. I took the gamble that you would forgive me. I didn’t realize how shitty that was at the time, but I can’t undo it, so.” The unfinished sentence hangs heavy in the air.

Dylan says, “Okay.”

“Okay?” Connor repeats, the word contorted with skepticism.

“Okay,” Dylan says. He closes his eyes and takes a breath to steel himself. “I think I’m going to hang up now.”

A pause. “Okay.” Then, “Let me know if you need anything.”

Too many things to list, Dylan thinks. Too many things to even comprehend. He needs his head to stop hurting. He needs so many more apologies and explanations. He needs to know why he can’t accept that Connor didn’t need him, when he spent so many long seasons training himself to accept that the distance between Edmonton and Chicago was too wide for teenage dependency to survive. He needs to know if waking up next to Connor still gives him the same quiet thrill. He needs to know how Connor tastes, how his hands would feel on Dylan’s body if he let himself cross a single line. How he sounds in the dark doing anything but whispering. He needs to know if he ever even stood a chance.

Or actually, probably, he needs to learn the difference between a want and a need, and get over it.

“You don’t _look_ concussed,” is how Dylan’s little brother greets him when Dylan lets him into his condo the next day. They were supposed to grab lunch between their morning skates and pregame naps, but instead they are hanging out at Dylan’s after Matt’s pregame skate and Dylan’s neurologist appointment. The good news is, he’s going to be fine. The bad news is, he’s not going to be fine _today_, so he has to sit out while Matt is in town. Their parents are thrilled to not have to pick sides for once.

“Seriously?” Dylan points at his stitched-up face, half of it mottled with bruising.

“That’s a black eye, not a concussion, Dylan,” Matt says, rolling his eyes as he breezes over to the fridge to help himself to a beer.

“I’m just saying they might be related,” says Dylan.

“Are you at least coming to the game?” asks Matt.

Dylan is going to try his best to be at the game so he can watch from the press box, and he assures Matt of this. Matt, placated, offers Dylan a beer from the fridge, which Dylan declines because he’s concussed. Matt shrugs and dives into the pile of delivery menus Dylan compiled for him. Dylan leans his elbows on the island counter and rests his head in his hands for a moment, eyes closed. He hasn’t had a headache since last night, but he’s still not feeling a hundred percent, light-sensitive and too easily disoriented.

He woke up convinced that talking to Connor in the middle of the night had been a hallucination or a dream, but the call log on his phone said otherwise. What an incredible idiot he is. He can’t even think about the conversation without getting overwhelmed with grief and guilt and anger and yearning, so he is steadfastly ignoring it. A later problem, Alex would call it. One of his favorite ways of telling Dylan to stop fixating on things with no immediate solution: Dyl, that’s a later problem. Focus on the now problems.

The now problems are: where to order lunch from, and whether his brain will let him go to the game tonight. Obviously he’ll be rooting for his own team, but he hates missing a chance to see either of his brothers in action. There were a few years when he was much more fixated on his own career and didn’t follow them as closely as they followed him, and although neither of them has ever mentioned feeling slighted, Dylan takes any opportunity to make up for it.

Matt slides a menu across the counter to him. “Is the chicken parm here good?”

“Probably,” Dylan says, flipping the menu open to scan it. “Is chicken parm ever bad?”

And that settles it. One now problem solved.

The other now problem turns out to be not much of a problem at all, as Dylan is feeling much more normal by gametime, and can even scroll uselessly through Instagram for as long as he wants without his eyes crossing in protest. He gets himself press-box ready in his favorite suit: dark gray, nearly black, tailored so well that his skinny limbs almost look graceful. Gingham button-down, and the tie Ryan gave him for Christmas a few years ago. If he has to sit out, he’s always figured, he might as well look half-decent doing it.

But a good outfit does not change the fact that sitting out sucks. He gripes about it via text to Alex and to Ryan; he whines to John when he gets to the rink; and after fist-bumping all his teammates on their way out to the ice, he procrastinates on heading to the press box by stopping by his parents’ box to complain some more and winds up signing some autographs for the other people sitting in there, which is flattering but a little embarrassing. Grown-ass man whining to parents about medical protocol is not exactly the image of professionalism he tries to project, but the fans are nice about it, and once he’s finished signing he high-tails it to the press box to restore his dignity by watching the game very studiously.

They’re about halfway through the first period when Dylan gets to his seat, clapping Kev on the shoulder as he slides in next to him.

“You’re late,” Kevin says.

“Shh, our secret,” Dylan says with a wink, and Kev grins back before getting distracted by a scoring chance, jumping out of his seat. His left arm is still in a sling, which is probably the only reason he doesn’t accidentally hit Dylan in his poor injured face.

The game is scoreless after one. At intermission, he gets nachos, and then goes to get more nachos for Kev when Kev looks longingly at Dylan’s nachos and then sadly at his useless arm. When he returns with Kevin’s nachos, Connor has stolen his seat. He’s sitting there in jeans and a soft-looking sweater, chatting with Kev about something that involves emphatic one-armed gestures on Kev’s part. Dylan’s ears and neck flush with heat at the memory of Connor’s sleepy, concerned voice, the stops and starts of a half-dreamed conversation, the questions that fell out of Dylan’s mouth when he didn’t have to look Connor in the eye. He’s about two seconds from taking Kev’s nachos back outside to hide when Kev, of course, notices him, eyes lighting up at the sight of the food.

“Stromer’s the best,” Kev tells Connor effusively, taking the cardboard tray and shoveling chips into his mouth. “But I’m sure you knew that already.” He seems unaware of the awkward tension between Dylan, rocking awkwardly on his feet, and Connor, eyeing Dylan nervously, chewing on the inside of his lower lip.

“You stole my seat, Davo,” Dylan says, trying to make it light.

“Your rookie told me the seat was free.” Connor gives Kevin a pointed look.

Kev shrugs, licking cheese off his teeth before he hits them with a beatific smile. “Didn’t think you’d mind.”

“Cute,” Dylan deadpans, digging his knuckles into Kev’s hair for a brief noogie before going to steal a chair from the beat writers. He waffles, but plops it down on Connor’s other side, opposite of Kev, because regardless of his other feelings, he likes Connor engaging spontaneously with a talented young player, and he likes their grievously injured rookie getting to chat with his idol. It feels good for both of them in a way that Dylan can’t quite explain.

Kev leans past Connor to stage-whisper to Dylan, “TSN is here filming for his documentary tonight.”

“Just for b-roll,” Connor says, his smile stilted. “Don’t worry, no one is showing up on camera without signing a waiver first. They just sent me in here because apparently I was ‘hovering’ and it was ‘distracting’. Can I?” He emphasizes the last sentence with unimpressed finger-quotes, then reaches for Kev’s nachos. Kevin offers them up so readily he almost dumps them on Connor.

“I will sign a waiver,” Kevin says. “Right now. I’ll do it.”

“Do I have to sign a second waiver or did my first one give you access carte blanche?” Dylan asks.

Connor glances at him, crunching on a corn chip. “That would be a question for Bill.”

“Who’s Bill?” Kev’s eyes widen. “Stromer, you didn’t tell us you were in the McDavid doc! Me and Tanner were just talking about how cool that would be. We were like, Stromer should go on and talk about Worlds, because we both skipped school to watch the gold medal game that year, and Stromer _never_ talks about Worlds, so as Stromer’s favorite rookies, we for sure deserve that content.”

Connor looks down at his hands. Dylan swallows a mouthful of guilt.

“First of all,” he says, past Connor, to Kevin, “you’re my only rookies. Second of all, how do you know I’m not on there talking about the Otters? Just because you and Tanner were fetuses when we were in junior—”

“Hey, we were, like, at least six,” Kev protests. “I think. We were at least already born.”

“And now I feel ancient,” Connor says. He claps a hand on Kev’s shoulder, leveling a look at him. “I promise there’s Worlds content, but if you don’t stop making me feel old and decrepit, I’m going to ban you specifically from watching it.”

Kev narrows his eyes. “I don’t think you can do that.” To Dylan: “Can he do that?”

“He’s Connor McDavid.” Dylan shrugs. “He can do whatever he wants.”

Down on the ice, both teams are lining up to face off for the second period. Dylan squares up to watch, grabbing the remains of his lukewarm nachos to pick at. Kevin does the Hunger Games salute, kissing three fingers and pointing them down at the bench, where Tanner returns the gesture. Connor watches this, then turns his raised eyebrows to Dylan and mouths, _cute_.

Dylan rolls his eyes and, despite everything, grins back at him.

During the second intermission, after Kev has left to find more snacks, Connor says in a hushed tone, “I swear I didn’t know you were here. You sounded so concussed on the phone I figured you’d be locked in a dark room somewhere.”

“Yeah, well, it was touch and go there for a while,” says Dylan. He didn’t really think Connor was out here manufacturing encounters, but the reassurance settles him anyway. It’s been hard to concentrate on the game with Connor next to him, fidgeting, trying and failing not to watch Dylan out of the corner of his eye. He’s not subtle, clearly waiting for the fallout from their middle-of-the-night conversation, cradling freshly dredged-up feelings close to his chest. If he expects Dylan to have settled on any answers , he’s going to be disappointed.

“How are you doing?” Connor asks, like prodding carefully at a wound.

Dylan considers being snarky, then considers being sincere, and finally squints at Connor, stitches scrunching under his eye, and asks, “Do you mean, like, in terms of the head injury, or in terms of, you know.” He makes a vague, Connor-encompassing gesture. “The you-ness of it all.”

“Well, I meant the first, but I wouldn’t say no to an answer to the second,” Connor says. He’s still fidgeting, slowly shredding the corner of a napkin on the tabletop with his thumbnail. They’re sitting close enough that the space between them feels charged, extra-strong now that Dylan has given in and closed it once. The warmth of Connor’s body isn’t an ancient memory anymore.

Dylan looks out at the ice, where a lucky fan is trying to pot a goal from center ice to win something from a valued sponsor. His first shot trickles wide to the left; he lines up to try again. _It’s all in the follow-through_, Dylan thinks at him. To Connor, he says, “Not sure this is the appropriate venue for those feelings.”

Connor is unfazed. “Okay, well, the first, then.”

“Pretty okay. These itch like hell.” The stitches, which he scratches delicately to illustrate. “Brain feels better now, though.”

“I’m glad,” says Connor. His phone buzzes, and he fires off a quick text, then, frowning, a series of longer texts. He stops, rolls his eyes skyward as if to pray for patience, and the phone buzzes again. Like the nosy asshole he is, Dylan leans over just enough to see that it’s Elijah from TSN. Connor’s hands curl protectively over the screen.

“He wants to come get some shots of us watching the game together,” he says, his mouth twisted with sheepish annoyance. “Don’t worry, I told him to respect your privacy.”

Dylan arches an eyebrow. “I thought you wanted me in the doc.”

“I do, but I want you not pissed at me more,” Connor says. “Or like, less pissed than you would be otherwise.”

It’s weird, Dylan thinks, how Connor can tell him exactly what he wants and Dylan’s still not sure, exactly, what Connor wants. Or like — Connor clearly wants things to be okay between them, but the inexplicable lines he’s drawn for himself about how to get there move him in stops and starts that fascinate Dylan as much as they frustrate him. He’s not the kid who would crawl into Dylan’s bed to beg him not to stay mad, and he’s not the person who cut off all contact instead of explaining himself. He’s something in between, maybe, or something completely different. But he’s still Connor, with his soft voice and soft eyes, with the hands Dylan wants to hold and the familiar knobs of wrists peeking out from his sweater cuffs, asking to be gathered and kissed. He’s still Connor, and Dylan is still a sucker.

“Tell him to come on up,” Dylan says. It’s worth it to see Connor’s mouth fall open.

“Are you sure? I can tell him to fuck off.”

“I don’t want them telling their friends I’m some sort of weird recluse because I bailed on filming _and_ banned them from the press box,” Dylan says, shrugging. “Besides, Kev will lose his mind.”

Kevin drops back into his seat, a large soft pretzel in hand. “What will Kev lose his mind about?”

“TSN is gonna come film the back of your head,” Dylan says. “Well. Mostly the backs of our heads, but since you’re right there, you know. Unless Davo wants you to move for his artistic vision.”

Kev looks between the pair of them, mouth open and eyes wide.

Connor deliberates. He catches Dylan’s eyes, smiles, and says, “I guess he can stay.”

“Holy shit,” says Kevin. “I gotta text Tanner, he’s gonna lose his mind.”

> There’s a stereotype that Canadians don’t care about Worlds, which isn’t entirely untrue. For whatever reasons, it doesn’t rank highest in our hierarchy of the hockey events that define the best of the best. Which isn’t to say our teams go in not caring if they lose. No one likes to lose, but some Worlds teams I’ve been on wanted more not to lose than to actually win, and even then, it wasn’t that serious, because on the other side of the final game was summer vacation. Sometimes guys needed a vacation more than they needed a medal. But this team in Helsinki was all-in from the get-go. We wanted to win, and we wanted to win together.
> 
> The gold medal game was the most-watched Worlds game in Canada in years. I like to think this is because people could sense the dedication and drive we had. For me, it had been a tough season, and I almost didn’t go. I’d never turned down an invitation for any reason other than injury, but when I got the call, I was so exhausted that I could only say I would think about it. But then I heard that they invited Dylan, too, so of course I had to say yes. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, and I knew it would be good for my soul to spend some time with him again.
> 
> I could have never imagined how good it would feel to finally win with him. We missed our shot in Erie, and I thought of that often with regret (and a little jealousy, when they got the OHL title without me). Winning with Dylan was a dream that had clung to me far past its expiration date, and doing it in Helsinki gave me a kind of closure that I didn’t even recognize until much later. When I decided to hang up my skates, it came to me so clearly: if I had never gotten to stand next to Dylan with gold medals around our necks, arms around each other’s shoulders, singing _O Canada_ loud and out of tune, it would have been much harder to walk away.

“I truly cannot believe,” Alex says, every word dripping with judgment, “that this is the first I’m hearing of all this.”

Here’s the thing: in three days, Connor is flying to LA for a long weekend of book signings and promotional stuff. He has dinner plans with Alex. Dylan does not expect him to lie nor is he willing to ask him to lie, and he doesn’t want Alex to get Connor’s side of the past couple months before he gets Dylan’s, so. It was time to spill. Dylan didn’t know why he was keeping it a secret at this point, anyway, except that because he didn’t share his Connor encounters with Alex up front, it felt guiltily strange to explain them later. At first he was trying to avoid a lecture, and now he’s getting a different lecture. A classic parable about why you don’t keep secrets from the person you tell everything.

They’re FaceTiming, Dylan from his hotel room in Detroit, Alex from his hotel room in Nashville. The time zones are an hour off, but it’s closer than they’re used to being, and they have some overlap in downtime between morning skates and afternoon naps. The perfect time for spilling one’s guts.

Dylan rolls over on the bed and groans, looking at his phone upside-down with his head hanging off the edge of the mattress. Onscreen, Alex is unimpressed, but not unsympathetic.

“Look, I’m sorry. Like I said, it’s been really weird and complicated and I didn’t know how to talk about it,” Dylan says.

“And that is why you shouldn’t have quit therapy,” Alex mutters. He huffs, shaking his shoulders out, and cracks his neck from side to side. It’s what he does when he’s shaking off annoyance. “Okay, whatever. I love you even though you’re an idiot.”

“Generous of you.”

“Eh, it goes both ways.” Alex grins ruefully. “And it’s not like I didn’t know that Davo showing up would fuck you right up. I should have guessed there was something going on.”

Here’s the other thing: somewhere in the midst of TSN filming the backs of their heads and Kev dragging Dylan to tell Tanner all about TSN filming the backs of their heads, Dylan found himself promising the rookies that he’d talk about Worlds in the McDavid Documentary. Which meant he had to tell Connor that he’d come in for more interviews while pretending he wasn’t typing the texts with sweaty palms and a pounding heart. Which means that when he gets back from this roadtrip and Connor gets back from LA, Dylan is going back to the studio. Which means that he needs to read up through the Worlds part of the damn book before then, so he doesn’t go in with no idea what Connor has already told the world. Again.

Alex says, “I hope he invites me to his documentary. I have some _great_ Davo stories.”

“What, like all the times he smoked you in practice?”

“Or the time you two had a secret meeting to decide whether I was allowed to hang out with you?”

Dylan rolls his eyes, but he’s grateful for the banter. His anxiousness is dissipating. Planning to have a hard conversation with Alex is always way more stressful than actually having it, which he should know by now, but it’s hard to shake the little voice that sits in the back of his head and whispers that the next fuck-up will be the last straw. Even with Alex. Even with Ryan, and Ryan would take a bullet for him.

“So do you want me to be nosy about anything in particular when me and Davo grab dinner?” Alex asks.

Dylan rubs a hand over his face, careful over the ridge where his stitches were until yesterday. The answer is yes, of course, but it’s also no, because the idea of other people getting involved in the tentative, tangled friendship he and Connor are attempting to navigate scares the hell out of him. He settles on answering with a weak “eh” noise, shrugging upside-down. Alex laughs.

“Yeah, okay, got it. No poking the bear.”

Dylan rolls over and plants his face in the comforter.

“You’re gonna tell me how reading that book goes for you though, eh?”

Grunt. Translation: obviously, but I’m gonna be grumpy about it.

“Atta boy.”

When they hang up, instead of napping, Dylan digs the book out of his suitcase and gets in bed to read. He’s trying to power through the Oilers parts, because he hates thinking about them and therefore doesn’t particularly want to read about them. There are too many bitter, guilty memories wrapped up in the way he and Connor drifted apart. And on top of that, he does not want to read about Connor’s tragic teenage crush on Taylor Hall — not that Connor calls it that, but Dylan was there, and he knows. It’s written between the lines about how grateful he was to have a place in Taylor’s house, how effusively he writes about Taylor easing him through that first year in Edmonton. Taylor sitting with him for hours after he broke his collarbone, talking him through all the distress and frustration he didn’t feel like he could show anyone else. The whole thing feels pointed, as if he’s telling any Oilers brass who read it, _look what you took away from me_.

The Oilers took things away from Dylan, too, and you don’t see him writing a book about it. Not that nearly as many people would care if he did. And probably none of them would be Oilers brass.

_Honest and important. _It’s funny how that can ring so true, but at the same time, there’s so much that’s been left off the pages.

Connor wasn’t always unhappy in Edmonton. He had teammates there he was genuinely close to — _is _close to. Who have stayed in touch, even after the way things ended. The Nuge practically ghost-wrote sections of the stupid book, after all. Connor’s moods were largely tied to the winning and losing, and the Oilers spent a lot of time losing while Connor racked up scoring trophies. They had some good streaks, but they always crashed down to Earth again. Even when they felt like they had a good team. Even when, for fleeting days or tentatively hope-filled weeks, playing hockey still felt like flying.

The book segues into the conversations Connor had with his agent about PR and social media strategy, to create a public image that was likeable and uncontroversial. Easy enough, since Connor, as a person, was not a person anyone would ever describe as controversial. Hockey was his life, so that part was always easy, but with so many eyes and expectations on him he needed some sort of separation. A space to be his private self. A wall he could pull up and know that the people on one side knew him as a person, and the people on the other side only knew him as a hockey player.

No wonder he doesn’t care if Dylan says less-than-stellar things about him on camera now. He’s already torn down all his own walls, laid himself bare for people to judge. Anything unkind Dylan could say would just be proving his point.

Dylan falls asleep with the book on his chest, and half an hour later, he jerks awake to his alarm. Disoriented, he flails to silence his phone. The book tumbles away and hits the floor with a dull thud.

Once he stops the beeping, Dylan rolls over to reach for the book, groaning with effort. He’s stiff from sleeping propped up to read, and his nap was not as long as it should have been, so he’s groggy as hell and the beginnings of a headache are starting to crawl into his temples. He absolutely intends to set the book aside, go chug some water, and get ready to head to the rink. But when he picks it up, he can’t help noticing the pages it fell open to. It’s a chapter Dylan hasn’t reached yet, and it’s very short. Not even one full page.

> **My Last Hockey Game**
> 
> I can’t write about the hit because I don’t remember it. You probably know it better than I do. I don’t remember half of the day leading up to it, and I don’t remember a full 24 hours after it.
> 
> What I do remember is waking up surrounded by monitors and machines, a doctor next to me, checking my stats. He noticed me blinking, smiled, and said, “Hey, he’s up. Look, try not to move too much, eh? I know you probably feel like crap, but you’re actually pretty lucky. If we do this right we might even be able to get you back on the ice.”
> 
> I wasn’t relieved. I didn’t feel lucky.
> 
> I felt disappointed.
> 
> What an unfathomable moment. I woke up in the hospital after a horrible injury to a doctor telling me I might still be able to play the sport I dedicated my life to, and disappointment bowled me over like a blindside hit. I didn’t say a thing to the doctor, because I had no words. I couldn’t understand why I felt that way.
> 
> Lucky for me, I had a lot of time to lie very still doing nothing but thinking about it. And when I could finally get up again, I traded full-time hockey for full-time therapy. For my body, for my mind, and especially for my heart, which felt like someone had ripped it right out of me.
> 
> Hockey wasn’t making me happy. It hadn’t been for a long time.

The text blurs with tears. Dylan flips hurriedly back to the photo section in the middle, scanning until he finds the Worlds picture. He was so overcome by it the first time that he hadn’t looked past it, but somehow he knows, now, that the last pictures are the important ones. The pictures of the Connor he wasn’t granted the privilege of knowing. The Connor who didn’t want him around.

He swallows hard and turns the page.

There’s Connor, sleepy and pale in his hospital bed, propped up against pillows with Cam perched next to him, both of them giving the camera weak smiles and half-hearted thumbs-ups. _Celebrating being alive — pg. 257_, the caption says. Next to Connor’s exhausted eyes and slumped shoulders, it feels sardonic.Then there’s Connor bundled up in a nest of blankets on his parents’ couch, wearing an old Otters pullover with the hood up. He doesn’t notice the camera, his face drawn in concentration as he writes in a spiral notebook. Caption: _I thought journaling was stupid when my therapist first told me to do it, but I wound up voluntarily writing this whole book, so shows what I knew — pg. 284._

Connor at physical therapy, holding himself up on parallel bars as he tentatively puts weight on his brace-clad leg, a therapist kneeling next to him, guiding the step with careful hands. He’s sweaty and skinny, dark circles under his eyes, hands white-knuckled on the bars. Connor and his mom, lakeside in lawn chairs, Connor’s leg propped on a cooler, the trees across the water a bright red-and-orange stripe across the landscape. Connor and Cam again, clinking bottles of Molson together in a downtown apartment under a homemade banner that says “6 Months Hockey-Free!” in lopsided block letters. Connor is laughing. Dylan misses Connor’s laugh.

Dylan’s phone buzzes with a message — a picture in the team group text from Nicky Roberston of Kerfoot on the ground outside the hotel, apparently having tripped on the curb and eaten it hard. _He is beauty he is grace_, Nicky says.

_Tell him to walk it off, I refuse to explain this injury to anyone_, John texts back almost immediately.

Right. Dylan has a game to play.

Shaken, he shuts the book and shoves it back in his suitcase, under his pajamas and spare hoodie. His gameday suit is hanging on the armoire door, so he doesn’t have to think about what to wear, and he’s able to get ready quickly and stumble down to the team bus almost on time. Like, forty-five seconds late at the most. In a daze, he trudges on board and slumps into a seat, letting his head fall against the window. The glass is cool, vibrating faintly with the bus engine. Dylan closes his eyes and breathes in deep through his nose.

Connor’s words keep echoing in his head: _I didn’t feel lucky. I felt disappointed._

Connor in his hospital bed, tired and brittle but still putting on a brave face for the camera. Had he decided, at that point, that Dylan was something he needed to quit along with hockey? How the hell does someone like Connor just quit hockey?

_Who needs hockey? You have me_.

John drops into the seat next to him, bumping their shoulders together. “Hey, you all right, bud? You look like you’re gonna puke.”

“I feel like I’m gonna puke,” Dylan mumbles, then adds at John’s alarmed look, “Oh, not in a sick way. Just in a nauseous way.”

“Sure,” John says skeptically.

“No, I swear.” Dylan straightens himself up, trying to shake it off. It doesn’t work, but he can fake it. “I just slept weird and now I kind of have a headache.” John’s frown deepens. “Not in a concussion way, geez. My brain is fine.”

John’s eyes narrow. He cocks his head and asks, “Now when has that ever been true?”

Dylan punches him in the shoulder.

Cracking a grin, John ruffles Dylan’s hair through his toque. “In that case, can you tell your brother your brain is fine so he stops asking me to check on you every day?”

Dylan doesn’t bother trying to duck away from the noogie; he just makes a face to convey his objection. “You should know by now no one can control him when he’s dadding or big-brothering.”

John rolls his eyes, fondly exasperated. “You think we can sign him in the off-season and save ourselves both a lot of texting?”

“We can try.” Dylan straightens his toque. “But you’re picking up the extra baby-sitting.”

“Fair enough,” John says, and nudges Dylan’s shoulder again as the bus begins to rumble forward. “I gotta go talk to Mo. Be good, eh?”

Dylan musters a wan smile and, as soon as John is gone, checks the time on his phone. Only six hours until he can go back to the book.

The day Dylan is supposed to do the new documentary interview, it’s snowing so hard that he half-hopes Connor will cancel. But, of course, like any tried and true Canadian, he does no such thing. It’s mid-afternoon when Dylan heads to the studio, still feeling the hard practice they had that morning in his hips and between his shoulders. The sun hasn’t come out all day, grey winter clouds hanging low, wrapping around skyscrapers and falling in wet clumps to the streets below. Dylan makes his way up to the fifth floor with a snowman’s worth of fat flakes clinging to his hat and coat, his boots leaving a trail of slushy city sludge from the entranceway to the elevator.

He’s half-melted when he slips into the little room with the greenscreen and the hot lights, and Connor huffs a laugh when he sees Dylan dripping in the doorway. He’s let his beard grow in again in the weeks since they’ve seen each other; it’s close-cropped but a little shaggy, like he hasn’t trimmed it for a couple of days.

“Is it bad out there?” he asks. “Sorry, I should have checked, but we’ve been in here all day.”

“I’ll survive,” Dylan says. He unwinds his scarf and pulls off his hat and gloves, flinging the pieces of damp winter wear at Connor one by one, too quickly for him to react to all of them, so the last glove hits him right in the face.

Connor sputters, then says, “I guess I deserved that.”

“Damn right you did,” says Dylan.

Here’s the thing: if Dylan is aggressively normal about all of this, he doesn’t have to think about Connor in his hospital bed, small and tired and absolutely lucky, no matter how he felt at the time. Lucky to be alive. In the next chapter, Dylan had found the detailed descriptions of Connor’s injuries in a brusque, clinical list, as if Connor didn’t want to think too hard as he wrote them down. Accompanying the list was a grainy black-and-white scan of an x-ray: the stark column of vertebrae from Connor’s skull to his shoulder blades, a big circle around the damaged C4 and C5 with a brief explanation of how if they had been wrenched a little more, he might not be walking. He might not even be breathing.

Dylan’s stomach turns every time he thinks about it. He has so many memories of Connor curled up next to him, his slow, steady breathing lulling Dylan’s anxious mind to sleep. Of Connor’s breath hot against his neck when Dylan wraps him in a hug. Of it blossoming in little white clouds into the crisp air in Erie and London and Sault Ste. Marie and Helsinki, Finland. He has dreamed in secret, hungry moments of kissing the breath right out of him, of drinking it in as it catches and sighs while Connor falls apart in Dylan’s hands. There’s a part of him that, despite everything, never stopped hoping he would get that chance, and now that part of him is shriveled and sick with the knowledge of how close — _millimeters _close — the possibility of it came to being nonexistent, forever.

If he looks at Connor with that thought in his head, he’ll collapse in on himself, so he is ignoring it. Everything is normal. He needs it to be normal. The crew is watching them with mild curiosity, no doubt remembering the tension from the last time Dylan was here.

“All right,” Dylan says, shrugging his coat off and throwing that at Connor, too. “I’m ready for my close-up.”

Connor, with his arms full of clothing, says, “Debatable, but we have professionals to help with that.”

The drill is the same as last time: hair, makeup, chatting with Bill and Elijah about how to shape the conversation. It’s more focused than the one before, more linear. They’ve already interviewed other guys from that Worlds team, and they just want Dylan to talk through the tournament in his own words, especially the gold medal game, so they can cut everything together to tell the whole story.

“I’ve been trying to talk Connor into having you guys talk about it together,” Bill says as Gloria the makeup artist dabs at Dylan’s dark circles. “I think it would be more dynamic, and a little bit of a treat, to be honest.”

“Does that not fit with his artistic vision?” Dylan asks, only a little bit mocking.

“I’m pretty sure his artistic vision is, like, half actual artistic vision and half just trying to navigate his own trauma,” Bill says with a shrug. “So I try to respect it. He’s good at this stuff, so it’s not a bad deal.”

Dylan sits with that while Gloria finishes with him. Then he asks Elijah if they can have a second stool. Connor, who had been chatting with the camera crew, shoots Dylan a perplexed look when he sees them carry it over, but he doesn’t argue, just dutifully comes over to let Gloria touch him up, too.

“I really didn’t show up camera-ready today,” he mumbles as he takes Dylan’s place.

“You’re beautiful just the way you are, baby,” Gloria reassures him.

“Yeah, Davo,” Dylan says. “Just an absolute stunner.”

“Can you kick him, please?” Connor asks Gloria, who does not acquiesce.

In his book, Connor dedicated a whole chapter to this tournament. Other World Championships got lumped in with other things, even the ones he did well in. This one, though, got pages of details and anecdotes and play-by-play memories. Dylan read it in his hotel room in St. Louis and cried the whole time, not just sniffling, but full-on crying with snot running down his face. He had almost called Connor afterward, just to hear his voice, just because he missed him like a missing limb, but it was past midnight and another late phone call seemed like it might puncture the limits of their careful boundaries.

God, he hates those boundaries.

Elijah claps his hands together several times, loudly. “All right, are we ready?” 

The interview is easier than Dylan expects once they get going. They fall into a rhythm, swapping stories about their teammates, laughing about nearly-forgotten moments and inside jokes. Dylan has always been great with stats, and Connor has a freakish memory for gameplay, so between the two of them they can recount nearly the entire tournament in detail so exacting that Elijah’s eyes cross as he tries to process it. Connor nearly falls off his stool demonstrating a breakaway move MacKinnon pulled off against Russia. When they talk about winning, Dylan only tears up a little.

“He’s such an easy crier,” Connor tells Bill and Elijah as Dylan wipes his eyes. There’s a familiar, fond curl to his voice that’s come out over the course of the conversation, and it’s not helping the waterworks situation. “I swear I’ve seen him cry at commercials.”

“I’m in touch with my feelings, okay?” Dylan says. He scrubs once more at his cheek, but he’s got it under control.

“Seemed like a pretty emotional win, though,” Bill prompts.

“Do the smooching celly!” one of the camera techs hollers.

“Hey, what happens in Helsinki stays in Helsinki,” Dylan calls back to laughter all around. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Connor blushing, and his heart does a stupid hop-skip of a beat. He swallows and pushes past it. “But yeah, it was a big win for us. It meant a lot to a lot of guys on the team for different reasons, but for me and Davo, it was our only chance to ever win something together, you know? So I think we really cherished that.”

“Yeah,” Connor says, glancing at Dylan with a soft smile. “That was really important to me, too.”

> For most of us, there was no point in going to bed because we had early flights anyway, so we stayed out all night celebrating. None of us spoke any useful Finnish, but apparently it’s not difficult to convey “We are hockey players who want beer” in any hockey-loving country, so the bartenders of Helsinki treated us well. A lot of the night is a blur: I know Darnell bought a round for the guys, and Jaret bought a round, and I think Jaret’s moms bought a round as well. What really fueled us was the adrenaline, though, medals swinging from our necks as we partied, the high of winning carrying us straight through until morning. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt so satisfied.
> 
> Late into the night, sometime between midnight and dawn, Dylan and I took a break from the celebration. It had been non-stop since the buzzer went, and I think we needed a quiet moment to really relish it. We wandered aimlessly through the city streets and wound up on a wide, flat bridge over the bay. I looked it up later—the bridge is called Pitkäsilta. The view was beautiful, all black water and city lights. Dylan stood with me as I looked out at it all, but I didn’t tell him what I was thinking, because what I was thinking was that I didn’t think hockey would ever be as good without him next to me, and that thought was too raw and heavy and full of impossibility for me to make him carry any part of it.
> 
> We did talk, but not about that, and not about anything I’m going to share here. This is a memoir, not a tell-all, and I still get to keep some things just for me.

The world is a wall of white outside of 299 Queen Street West. Dylan eyes it warily through the wide front windows as he pulls on his layers in the lobby, weighing the likelihood of finding a cab outside against the inevitable longer wait if he summons one from his phone instead. After spending the afternoon talking through and around feelings he’s deliberately avoided for years, the thought of being at home with a cold beer and a hot shower is incredibly appealing, but the thought of getting there through a snowstorm is so draining that he wants to lie down on the floor.

“Sure is a mess out there, eh?” says the front desk lady with the Maple Leafs pin. “Let me know if you want me to call you a ride.”

“I will, thank you,” Dylan says, not looking away from the swirling snow. He should probably take her up on that. Take the decision out of his own hands. Outside, faintly, several car horns blare in discordant unison. Dylan doesn’t turn at the sound of footsteps behind him, and jumps when he hears Connor’s voice.

“Oh, geez.” He comes to a stop beside Dylan, coat undone and gloves not on yet. “I was going to ask if you wanted to grab dinner, but that looks brutal.”

Dylan glances at the front desk lady, who seems engrossed in her computer. “You’re done for the day?”

“Done enough. I kind of dipped because I wanted to catch you before you left.” The nervous duck of Connor’s head betrays this for the question it is: he wants to know if it’s okay for him to want Dylan around. The way things went upstairs, it’s not an unreasonable question, but it’s not one Dylan is prepared to answer. He wants Connor to want him around. He wants Connor around, he thinks. He’s pretty sure. He just doesn’t know if that’s okay or healthy or the first step on a road to total fucking disaster.

But on the other hand, a total fucking disaster might be better than walking on eggshells forever, and he’s tired of missing Connor so much when Connor is right there next to him.

“Going out for dinner in this is probably a terrible idea,” he says, carefully casual, “but there’s an Indian place by my building that does carryout. If we order now and get a cab it would be ready when we get there.” Blood thumps in his ears: warning bells. Check yourself before you wreck yourself, Strome. No one wants to pick up the pieces of your dumb fragile heart again.

Connor tilts his head, brows furrowed. “You want me to come over?”

“Apparently, yeah,” Dylan says with a sigh, and goes to ask the front desk lady to call them a cab.

Rush-hour traffic is struggling with the snow, so getting to the little Indian restaurant on Dylan's street takes forever. Dylan and Connor sit on opposite ends of the back seat, silently catching up on their phones while the cab inches south. Dylan texts Alex, _is having davo over for dinner a terrible idea?_ then, immediately after, _nvm_ _too late_. The roads are coated in icy gray slush. Visibility is shit. This would have been a better idea on an evening where inviting Connor over wasn’t effectively trapping him until the weather dies down, but, hey, too late now.

They pick up their food and trudge a block through the blizzard to Dylan’s, both of them choosing not to notice the spark of delight that crosses the doorman’s face when he sees who Dylan’s company is. In the elevator, they shiver and stomp their feet, knocking snow off their shoes. There are snowflakes clinging to Connor’s eyelashes, and his face is flushed from the cold, his cheeks and the tip of his nose bright pink. It is, unfortunately, cute. Dylan stomps a little extra about it.

When Dylan went over to Connor’s for drinks — if feels like eons ago now, but it was only a couple of months — he had been struck by the unfamiliarity of Connor's apartment. The lack of homeyness. The lack of Connor-type things. As the two of them shed their coats and shoes and winter accoutrements in Dylan’s foyer, it dawns on him, uncomfortably, that Connor is about to think the same thing about Dylan’s place. He has a few personal touches strewn around: the big fuzzy Leafs blanket on the couch, the single row of sports and leadership books on the living room’s in-wall bookcase. There is exactly one thing hanging on the wall, and that’s his framed Otters jersey from his last season in Erie. Dylan loves a home, but he is apparently not very good at building one.

“Bowls or straight from the containers?” Connor asks, unloading their curry and rice from the carryout bag onto Dylan’s kitchen table. Another personal touch: the single week-old issue of _The Mississauga News_ on the counter, which Dylan’s mom gave him last week because there’s something nice about one of the McLeods in it somewhere. Dylan hasn’t had the chance to go through it yet, but at least it’s there, demonstrating that a human being lives here.

“Bowls, Davo, we’re adults now,” he says.

To complement their adulthood, Connor picks a red wine from Dylan’s unimpressive collection. They dish themselves dinner and eat.

The chatter that came so easily in front of the cameras earlier does not reignite over food. There’s no narrative, here, no predetermined topics. Dylan tries not to stare too much, but the sight of Connor hunched over a bowl of curry at his kitchen table, with his strangely skinny shoulders and his slightly scruffy beard, his hair starting to curl around his ears again, his meticulous hands, his soft eyes, his secret heart — it’s more than Dylan knows what to do with. He was afraid it would feel like having a stranger at the table, but the reality is far worse: it’s having his other half at the table, and having no idea how they fit together now.

“It’s good,” Connor says after a few silent bites.

“Yeah,” says Dylan. “I’ve ordered from them a bunch of times since I moved in. The owner is this older guy named Adnan who always tells me I should buy more food because I’m too scrawny and he doesn’t want to see someone hand me my ass on the ice. I thought it was funny at first but now I think he’s actually worried about me.”

“I mean, he’s not wrong. You’ve always been kind of scrawny.” Connor glances at him, testing the waters of mild teasing. It doesn’t quite sit right; Dylan tries and fails to brush it off.

“Like you can talk,” he mutters, stabbing a clump of rice. Connor gives him an unsure, lopsided half-smile, fidgets with his fork, then goes back to eating. Dylan thinks longingly of all the eyes that were on them earlier. At least then he knew what role to play. Without anyone watching, he has to figure out his own agenda, and who the fuck knows what that is. Certainly not Dylan.

His phone buzzes on the table. It’s a text from Alex: _You are hopeless buddy_. True. Dylan swipes it away and turns the phone facedown.

At least the curry is good. In theory, anyway. It’s always good, but the tension and awkwardness pressing in around them makes it hard to taste anything. They keep eating in silence.

Eventually, Connor sets his fork down.

“Stromer,” he says, eyes cast down at his almost-empty bowl. He bites the inside of his lip. Touches his fork again, but doesn’t pick it up. “Are we ever going to be normal again?”

What a question.

“No idea,” says Dylan, his voice catching. He looks away, blinking fast.

“Dylan,” Connor says softly.

“I think I’m done,” Dylan says, standing abruptly to take his bowl to the sink. He sets it down too hard and it clangs against the metal, an ugly sound. “Are you done? I’ll clean up.”

“Dylan,” Connor says again.

Dylan drags his hand across his eyes before busying himself with packing up the leftovers, matching lids to take-away containers. It’s stupid how quickly he can go from feeling like he has a handle on this to feeling completely useless. How badly he wants the answer to Connor’s question to be yes, while at the same time having no idea what normal means for them. Is normal Erie, where they were so tangled in each other it was hard to see anyone else? Is it the fumbling years of yearning and pettiness that came after, as they both built separate lives out of sheer necessity? Is it after Helsinki, when they finally found something like an okay rhythm of texting and talking across the distance between them, or is it Helsinki itself, a time capsule of everything they could be in a place that will never be touched again?

“Done?” he asks again, reaching for Connor’s bowl. Connor holds both hands up, surrendering the dish. Another ugly clang in the sink. Dylan stays there for a moment. Grips the edge of the counter and squeezes his eyes shut. Connor’s chair scrapes against the floor, and a moment later, Connor touches his shoulder. Dylan jerks away like he’s been burned.

“Don’t.”

Connor’s face doesn’t crumple, but Dylan knows what it looks like when he crumples on the inside.

The problem is, he’s still so angry. He has been trying so hard to be hopeful and open to possibility, but deep down inside, he’s still so angry and hurt, and being here, alone with Connor, facing down the question of whether they’ll ever be okay, brought that simmer to a boil too fast for him to manage. Now his hands are shaking and his heart is pounding and he can’t get the tears out of his eyes. Connor said he had taken the gamble of assuming Dylan would forgive him, and something about that just makes Dylan want to not.

In through the nose, out through the mouth. He would really like to not cry right now.

“I’m gonna,” Connor says, and goes to collect the food containers from the table. He stacks them neatly in the fridge, which is already about 80% leftovers. An extremely competent showing from Dylan Strome. Connor walks back to the table, picks up his wine glass, and drains the last mouthful.

“Do you want me to leave?” he asks.

“Don’t be stupid, it’s a disaster out there,” Dylan says.

“Well, it doesn’t really seem like you want me here, so.” Connor crosses his arms, waiting for a protest to the contrary. When it doesn’t come, he pours himself another glass of wine and takes it to the living room. Out of sight. Dylan can breathe again. He clenches and unclenches his shaky hands, pushes his fingers into his hair, tries one more time to blink back the tears. They slip down his cheeks, dripping off his chin.

“That’s fucking rich coming from you,” he calls after Connor. “That’s really fucking rich.”

No answer, which is just — laughably on-brand. Dylan grabs his own glass and finishes it in one swallow, then stalks over to the doorway between the kitchen and living room. Connor didn’t turn on the light, and now is standing in the shadows by the sliding glass door, his back to the room, staring out at the furiously swirling storm. Dylan’s condo is twelve stories up; the city view is completely obscured by wind and snow.

“It doesn’t seem like I _want_ you here?” Dylan asks. “You cut me out of your entire life!”

Connor turns, arms folded, shoulders hunched. His glass of wine is sitting untouched on the end table. He looks small, and Dylan hates it.

“You cut me out of your entire life,” he repeats, unable to keep his voice from wobbling. “No explanation, no goodbye, not even one fucking text. You didn’t want the rest of the world to know what was going on with you, that’s fine, but for fuck’s sake, Connor. I had to find out you weren’t dead through Twitter. You wrote a whole fucking book, and you couldn’t say one word to me? And now you’re mad that I’ve got mixed feelings about having you in my home?”

The moment of silence that follows this outburst sucks all the air out of the room.

“I’m not mad,” Connor says quietly. “I just thought we were doing okay.”

“We were only doing okay because I thought if I tried hard enough to act like things were okay then they would be,” Dylan snaps. “I wanted things to be okay. But you just — you showed up out of nowhere, you barely apologized, you just decided I existed again, and I have been trying so hard to balance protecting myself with not losing you again—” His voice breaks, and he cuts himself off to scrub roughly at his face.

Connor looks like he’s trying to shrink into himself. It’s a striking sight, his smallness and stillness in front of the storm behind him.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I should have reached out sooner.”

“You think?” Dylan says. Then, the burning question: “Would I have ever even heard from you if Padma hadn’t forced us to take that picture together?”

“I looked for you before the game,” Connor says. “And I thought — I thought you would have read the book. So you might understand a little bit.” He sounds miserable and defeated, like he regrets saying it before the words are even finished coming out of his mouth.

Dylan turns on his heel. Connor’s book is still in the messy pile of his suitcase on his bedroom floor, and it takes him a moment to find it under all the laundry, but once he does he takes it straight back to the living room. Connor hasn’t moved. Dylan crosses the room and shoves the book against Connor’s chest, pressing it there until Connor takes it.

“You can keep it,” Dylan says. “I’m done with it.”

Connor sleeps on the couch. Dylan can’t in good conscience send him out into a blizzard, but he has lost the will to try to fix anything tonight, so they exchange just enough words to determine that Connor will sleep on the couch, and then Dylan goes to his room and shuts the door. He sits down on his bed, and he starts to cry.

It’s nasty, ugly, angry crying, the kind of crying that’s been held back for too long so it comes out in helpless, devastating waves, tears and snot and bile. It only lasts for a few minutes, but it feels like ages, and it leaves Dylan shaking and nauseous. He sits there, hugging himself and sniffling, at a loss for what to do next. Sleep, probably, even though the likelihood of Dylan being able to sleep is slim-to-none anyway. He can never sleep after a bad loss, a great win, or a fight.

There’s a slew of new texts in the team group chat that he does not have the energy to look at. A couple in his side chat with just the wonder twins, which he checks even though the thought of engaging with people is exhausting. Thankfully, it’s nothing pressing; just raccoon memes. A follow-up from Alex: _?? How’d it go??_ and a bunch of new snaps from Ryan of his kids watching Matt’s game on television. Dylan texts back,_ flyers? gross, raise them right_, and swipes everything else away.

It’s not even nine o’clock, but he goes through the motions of getting ready for bed. When he turns off the lights and crawls under the covers, he doesn’t want to have to move again.

After all the time he spent praying for Connor to call him, he never imagined having him back would be this hard. He didn’t know it was possible to hold so much anger and so much love in his heart at the same time. The combination is like a fire inside his chest, flames licking at his ribs and crawling up his throat. It’s hard to think about anything else. He can’t fix it, but he can’t end it.

The problem is, he thought they were doing okay. Not now — before Connor got hurt. They’d been strange and rocky for several years, but after Helsinki, once Dylan slapped some band-aids on his dumb feelings, they had been doing okay. Texting like normal, chatting about their lives, staying in touch. Not on the same level as Erie and right after, but it was comfortable. It felt okay. Dylan was starting to figure out how to smooth over his bitterness and heartache and learn to live with lower expectations. But he never expected to be completely expendable.

He lies in bed thinking about that for a long time. As the clock ticks past midnight, he replays every interaction he and Connor have had since Connor got back: the grocery store, the picture after that first game, the texting, the drinks. _Of course I’m sorry_. Connor’s fingers wrapped around his wrist. _I just kinda missed you_. Connor’s arms winding tentatively around him. Connor’s laugh as Dylan tells a story for the cameras at the studio. _Are we ever going to be normal again?_

Dylan is still very awake when his bedroom door opens. Just a cautious crack at first, then wider, slowly. There’s a light on somewhere in the apartment, and a dim golden stripe widens on the floor before Connor’s shadow cuts through it. Dylan closes his eyes. Footsteps pad closer, then stop at Dylan’s bedside. There’s a long moment before anything happens.

“Stromer,” Connor murmurs. He touches the back of Dylan’s hand with featherlight fingertips. “Come on, I know you never sleep after a fight.” His voice is uneven and frayed, like maybe he’s been crying, too. And he’s not wrong, but that doesn’t mean Dylan is ready to talk.

The floorboards creak, and when Dylan slits one eye open, he sees two centimeters of the back of Connor’s head, leaned back against the edge of the mattress. He’s sitting on the floor, knees pulled up to his chest. He sighs, a heavy sound in the silent room. Several minutes tick by. Dylan is sure Connor can hear his heart, pounding so hard he feels a little dizzy.

“I know it wasn’t a good apology,” Connor says. His voice is soft, but it’s the only sound in the room besides Dylan’s stupid heart and the occasional howl of wind outside. “I think I was kind of trying to do the same thing you said. Pretending things were okay hard enough to make them really okay. And, I don’t know, it’s just. All of this has been really hard. Quitting hockey and writing the book and deciding to do this documentary. It’s been really hard and pretty scary, and half the time I still feel like I’m kidding myself thinking I was entitled to any of this, and admitting I fucked up any part of it as bad as I fucked up the part with you — it felt like the whole thing would just come unraveled.”

He wavers a little on that last part and sucks in a quick breath. Dylan is intimately familiar with the sound of holding back tears.

“I know that doesn’t make it okay,” Connor manages, choked up. “And it wasn’t like — it wasn’t completely on purpose. I just kept thinking that as soon as I had my shit a little more together I’d call you and explain, and then suddenly it felt like it had been too long, and I might as well finish getting everything down on paper so I could, I don’t know. Feel like I had something to show for myself, I guess.” He stops to sniffle. Dylan’s chest hurts. His eyes are wet again.

“The only reason I was talking to Nuge about it was because he came to check on me before I left Edmonton.” Connor’s voice gets small here, teetering from nervous to ashamed. “So I didn’t have a choice about hiding what a mess I was from him. He just showed up.”

There’s a long, quiet moment before he finishes: “Anyway. I’m sorry. And I’m trying. And I hope you’ll let me keep trying.”

Dylan shifts to the edge of the mattress, close enough to reach Connor. His fingers brush Connor’s hair on their way to find his shoulder. The way the relief floods of Connor’s body is palpable. He takes Dylan’s hand in both of his, squeezing it tight; Dylan squeezes back, almost hard enough to hurt. They stay like that for a long time, one of Connor’s thumbs smoothing over the ridge of Dylan’s knuckles over and over and over.

“I don’t want to do this without you,” Connor says, almost a whisper. “I will if I have to, but I don’t want to.”

“I don’t want you to either,” Dylan says, his voice a cracked and muddled mess. Connor kisses the back of his hand once, twice, then holds it to his cheek. His skin is sticky with dried tears. Carefully, Dylan extracts himself from the blankets without taking his hand from Connor and slides off the side of the bed to sit next to him, their shoulders pressed together, the side of Dylan’s knee resting against Connor’s.

“Hey,” he says, brushing his knuckle over Connor’s cheekbone. “You okay?”

“Not really.” Connor’s lips brush Dylan’s hand when he speaks. His beard is scratchy against Dylan’s skin. It’s the first thing about him that hasn’t felt familiar, and it strikes Dylan how much older he is, now, than in all the memories Dylan cycles through when he wants to torture himself. This is the part where they're supposed to be at the peaks of their dreams, and they're still staring at each other in the dark, holding on for dear life with no idea what happens next.

“Yeah, me neither,” Dylan says. He offers a shaky smile, which Connor returns just as shakily. Dylan untangles his hand from Connor’s so he can pull him in for a hug, twisting to get both arms around him. Connor is awkward and bony in a way he isn’t used to, but he fits against Dylan the exact way he always has. Dylan closes his eyes and matches their breathing, in and out, long and slow, until their bodies are rising and falling as one.

Early the next morning, Dylan is shaken gently awake. Dylan knows it’s early because of the silver light filtering in through the blinds and because of the clump of fog where his brain should be. He processes, in order: Connor’s hand on his shoulder; Connor’s soft but urgent voice; and the absolute quiet of the world outside. The storm is over.

“The snow stopped,” Connor says. “I’m gonna see if I can get a cab home.”

“Why?” Dylan croaks.

Connor huffs. Dylan can hear his smile. “Hot shower. Change of clothes.”

Dylan groans and rolls over, pulling the blankets more tightly around himself. “Don’t be stupid, I have both of those things here.”

When his alarm wakes him up for practice a couple hours later, Dylan shuffles groggily into the living room to find Connor on the couch, cocooned in Dylan’s Leafs blanket, completely absorbed in writing in a book propped against his knees. His own book, Dylan sees when he turns it to pen something into the margin. His hair is still damp from his shower, and the clothes Dylan lent him — team sweatpants and an old Burberry hoodie — are hidden by the blanket, but Dylan knows they’re there, and entire scene cuts straight into his heart. Fuck.

Connor is concentrating so hard that he doesn’t notice Dylan until he’s been standing there watching for at least a minute.

“Oh, you’re up.” He closes the book.

“Practice,” Dylan says, and continues shuffling toward the kitchen.

“I made coffee,” Connor calls after him. “You have the same machine as my mom. It’s probably still warm.”

It is still warm, and Dylan tries not to think too hard about waking up to fresh-made coffee and Connor in his clothes as he fixes a mug and brings it back to the living room. He sits on the opposite end of the couch from Connor, pulling his feet up onto the cushions. The book has been set aside on the coffee table; Connor is poking at his phone instead

“I’m glad you got some sleep,” he says. Dylan can’t say the same back: Connor looks tired, and he’s been up for hours. It’s possible he didn’t sleep at all. That’s supposed to be Dylan’s role.

The mood in the room is not quite easy. It has all the trappings of easy, but the ghost of the previous night hangs in the air. Dylan’s throat is still raw from crying, and the dregs of a headache are clinging to the inside of his skull. He feels as wrung out as Connor looks.

After they finished sniffling and clinging to each other on the floor, Dylan had not had the heart to send Connor back to the couch. They shared the bed, each glued to a separate edge of the king-sized mattress. Dylan didn’t think he would sleep, but he did. Not enough, but enough to function through practice. Not enough to pick apart his feelings about the past eighteen hours. He had exactly one dream last night, and it involved the coarseness of Connor’s facial hair against Dylan’s mouth. He is not dealing with any of that before practice.

“What were you writing?” Dylan asks, nodding toward the book.

“Just some notes.” Connor sets his phone aside, exchanging it for his coffee mug. “You said I left stuff out, so.”

That feels like too much to engage with. Dylan hums and sips his coffee.

“I’m gonna go get dressed,” he says.

He’s not angry anymore, but he’s not _not_ angry, either. The anger is still there, like the glow of hot tinder in a burnt-out campfire. If he poked at it, it would crackle and send one last gasp of smoke into the air before crumbling. The thing that’s gone is the urge to push Connor away. Dylan is not _not_ angry, but Connor is in Dylan’s living room, wearing Dylan’s clothes, and Dylan wants him there. He wants him there badly enough that his stomach turns when it comes time to leave.

Leaving the apartment — returning to the real world — feels like a gamble, but they don’t really have a choice. They have lives to get back to. When Dylan walks Connor down to meet his cab, they step out into a snow-covered city that’s still waking up despite the mid-morning hour. The plowed streets cut slick black lines between the piles of ice and slush piled on the curbs, and melting snow drips onto Dylan’s head as they duck into the sunlight.

When the cab pulls up, they hug goodbye, promising to text. Connor smells like Dylan’s soap and shampoo, and he holds onto Dylan a little too tight for Dylan to be okay with letting him go, but he does, and they go their separate ways.

A week goes by without much to distract Dylan from fixating on the Connor situation. They win a game, they lose a game, they lose another game in overtime. They’re still clinging to their wildcard spot. He and Connor text, fairly regularly, about normal things: Dylan gives Connor updates on Kev; Connor gives Dylan gossip about Elijah having a blatant crush on one of the camera techs. Before games, Connor texts Dylan good luck, and after them, he texts him good game. Dylan sent him some snaps of Tanner and Kev being idiots, then complained about the lack of response only to get a _u still use snap?_ in reply. But then he starts getting snaps from the studio of people doing interviews for the documentary with various filters on them, and he’s secretly a little too pleased that Connor re-downloaded the app just for him.

Then, finally, there’s something that demands Dylan’s full attention: Kevin is cleared to skate. Kev announces this by running into the locker room after practice and launching himself onto John piggyback-style, pointing imperiously to the doorway, and proclaiming, “Take me to the ice!”

“Clean bill of health, Keaner?” John asks. Kev confirms, and John drops him on his ass.

Not a totally clean bill of health, obviously: no contact, and he has to take it easy, but he is thrilled just to be able to put his skates on again. Dylan hangs back with a handful of the guys, most of them already in street clothes, to cheer Kev on as he takes a lap around the ice. Robin is hovering nearby in case the movement makes him dizzy or disoriented, but overall the exercise is a grand success. Tanner hops out onto the ice to skate with him, hooking their arms together as they glide merrily along. Kev is beaming wider than Dylan has seen him smile in weeks.

“Cute as hell,” Morgan grumbles fondly. “What a kid.”

Dylan leans on the boards, watching the pair of rookies skate easy laps around the rink. Teammates clap him on the shoulder or ruffle his hair through his toque as they file back to the locker room, except John, who sidles up next to him, slinging an arm around Dylan’s shoulders.

“Ah, youth,” he says, a smile playing at his mouth. Out on the ice, Tanner pivots so he’s skating backwards in front of Kev, holding both his hands as if he really needs the help.

“They’re good kids,” Dylan says.

“They are,” John agrees. He laughs and shakes his head. “You calling anyone a kid is still a trip, though.”

Dylan makes a face. “Hey, I’m an adult.”

“Sure you are.” John grins and squeezes him in a half-hug. “And I’m glad you’re here. If I can’t have Ryan, you’re the next best thing, I guess.”

“Thanks, I think,” Dylan says dryly.

Tanner yelps, falling backwards when his blade catches in a divot. He lands on his ass, and Kev nearly falls over laughing at him. When he reaches to help Tanner up, Tanner yanks on his hand, and a second yelp echoes across the rink. They lie there, a giggling tangle of limbs.

“Proof of life, please!” Robin calls. Kev and Tanner both give thumbs-ups.

“Ridiculous,” John says, but he’s still smiling.

“I kinda miss it,” Dylan says, picking at a nick in the boards. “You know, just being a kid out there. Don’t get me wrong, I still love it, but, man. Everything was way less complicated.”

John hums thoughtfully. “Not sure I agree there. I mean, sure, adult shit is different, there’s more priorities to juggle, but did you feel uncomplicated when you were nineteen and twenty?”

At nineteen, Dylan captained a failure of a World Juniors team and cried on international TV about it. At twenty, he captained the Erie Otters to an OHL championship; he spent the summer working his ass off to take the NHL by storm, then spent most of the season in Tuscon, simultaneously furious that no one would let him prove he was good enough and hating himself for not being good enough. He was right in the middle of realizing that, soon, Connor wouldn’t need him anymore, and completely incapable of examining that in a constructive or healthy way. There were entire days when he felt sad and mad and desperate and hopeful all at the same time, from sunup to sundown.

“It feels like so long ago,” he says.

John gives him a soft, big-brother-y look that makes Dylan miss Ryan sharply.

“Have you been doing okay?” he asks. “I mean besides the concussion and all that. With the other stuff.”

Kev and Tanner have made it safely back to their feet, and are now skating hand-in-hand, talking with their heads close together. Kev sees John and Dylan still watching them and waves animatedly; Tanner, for some reason, bursts into laughter. John waves back gamely while Dylan flips them off.

“I guess,” Dylan says, mustering up a crooked smile. “It’s kind of been a rollercoaster, but things are okay right now.”

“Good.” John squeezes the back of Dylan’s neck, warm and sympathetic. “You gotta come over for dinner again soon. The kids keep asking for you.”

Dylan can do that, and he says so. It will be a good excuse for John to try out the new grill he got for Christmas, and a great excuse for Dylan to post Instagram stories of John grilling in the snow with hashtags like #CaptainDad and #DadBod. And just a good excuse for Dylan to get out of the apartment. He’s been bad at being social away from the rink since Christmas.

“Stromer!” Kev calls across the ice, waving again. “Take a picture for my insta!”

Dutifully, Dylan does, snapping a few of Kev and Tanner with their arms slung around each other, both of them beaming. He sends them all to their mini-group chat, and has to laugh when he checks Instagram later and sees which one Kevin posted. Neither of them is looking at the camera: Kev is in the middle of saying something and Tanner is clearly laughing. The caption says: _Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated #ComebackStartsNow #WonderTwins #WatchOutNHL #StromeAndMcDavidTwoPointOh_

At the top of the comments:

**mcdavid97** Way to go buddy!

Dylan screenshots it and texts Connor: _U stealin my rookie bud?_

_My rookie now_, says Connor.

Dylan laughs and shakes his head. Kev is going to lose his mind.

"You know, you're welcome to take them with you if you want," Ryan says.

Dylan is lying on Ryan's living room floor, having been thoroughly vanquished at mini-sticks by Little John, and now baby Chloe is climbing on him like a very small, clumsy mountain climber scaling her own personal uncle-shaped Everest. Dylan has one hand to steady her with, since Chrissie has taken his other captive to color on his fingernails with magic markers.

"I would love that, but I'm not sure if they would," Dylan says, turning his head to avoid a baby foot to the face. "I don't have many toys in my apartment."

"Don't be silly. We can bring our own toys," Chrissie says. She frowns studiously at Dylan's hand, then exchanges her purple marker for a blue one.

"Yeah, Dyls, don't be silly," Ryan says with a grin. Tomorrow, they have a game against each other, so they're squeezing in all the family time they can this afternoon. Sydney is out running errands; Ryan and Dylan have been tasked with child-wrangling and keeping an eye on the crock pot, which is slow-cooking enough chicken chili to feed an army, or two professional hockey players and two growing children, which requires about the same amount of food.

"Uncle Dylan, are you gonna beat Daddy tomorrow?" Chrissie asks.

"Yes, I'm going to kick his butt," Dylan tells her solemnly. She and Little John both burst into giggles at the word 'butt'. Ryan sticks his tongue out from across the room.

Dylan loves coming to Ryan's house during the season. The house in Mississauga is nice, too, but since the Tampa house is the house where they spend the school year and the hockey season, it's the one that's stuffed full of the odds and ends of everyday life, the one that's soft around the edges in a naturally lived-in way. He likes when he visits and gets put to work helping with Little John's homework (he's in grade one, so it's easy enough for even Dylan to handle) or holding the baby while Sydney cooks. He likes how easily they fold him into their family, like he's an essential part of the operation instead of a visitor stepping in for the afternoon. Ryan has always been good at making him feel important.

"Johnny, you wanna come help stir the chili?" Ryan asks. Little John runs to help, and Chrissie drops Dylan's hand to chase after him, yelling that she wants to stir, too. Chloe babbles and gnaws at Dylan's knee, leaving a wet baby mouth-print on his sweatpants; Dylan rubs her back lightly.

"You're right and you should say it," he tells her.

"Bah-bah," Chloe reiterates. Dylan winces as her foot digs into a bruise on his side, and tries to shift subtly to take pressure off his sore hip. It's been bothering him more since his concussion, like the stick to the face knocked something loose in his brain and now it refuses to let him ignore the fact that he's getting old. It's nothing PT and Advil can't keep under control, but it's annoying and uncomfortable, especially after long flights.

"Dyl," Ryan calls from the kitchen. "You have, like, ten text messages."

"How many of them are raccoon memes?" Dylan asks.

"Only three, I think. Alex sent some baby updates. Wow, Lyndsey's big, eh?"

Dylan groans and gets to his feet, scooping Chloe up to carry into the kitchen with him. "Yeah, she says the bigger she gets, the more stuff Alex has to do for her. Which seems pretty fair actually."

"And Connor wants to know if you want to see the rough cut of your Worlds interview." Ryan has Chrissie on his hip; Little John is standing on a chair, stirring the open crock pot slowly and studiously. Ryan hands Dylan’s phone over. "I'm not above impersonating you to get my hands on that."

"Or you could wait until the premiere like everyone else," Dylan says, scrolling through his messages. One of the memes, sent by Tanner, is a raccoon hanging out with a golden retriever puppy. _U and mcdavid :)))))_, Kevin says. Dylan hates both of them.

The texts from Alex do indeed include photos of Lyndsey posing with her giant belly, a new sonogram, and every new detail from Lyndsey’s obstetrician. Connor’s message is just the one text, exactly as Ryan read it.

_Sure but I'm at rys so I'll watch it later_, he texts back. Ryan sighs loudly, but doesn't argue.

Dylan has been keeping up with documentary stuff, for his own good. After a teaser clip that included Dylan talking about Erie was released and Dylan was surprised by questions about it in a media scrum, he took to checking the documentary's Instagram feed a few times a week, and now it's habit to scroll through it in his downtime. He sees who's sitting for interviews, where they're going for on-site filming, behind-the-scenes bits with Connor ducking away from the camera as often as he deigns to talk to it. It's a big operation — much bigger than the single room and small crew Dylan experienced. There, the documentary felt like Connor's pet project, and Dylan had kind of assumed the network was just humoring him, but apparently it's their event of the season.

Dylan's first uncharitable thought was that of course Connor would take on a new medium and immediately have the hockey world wrapped around his finger with it, but then he remembers Connor's uneasy jokes about creative control — he remembered Bill talking about trauma, and Connor in the background of a recent behind-the-scenes video, wearing the hoodie he borrowed when the blizzard forced him to spend the night — and he worries that, once again, it's the hockey world twisting Connor around its finger.

But he's trying not to fixate. Connor said he didn’t want to do this without Dylan; he didn’t say he wanted Dylan to stick his nose in and make assumptions about Connor’s ability to handle himself. It’s not really Dylan’s business, and it's entirely probable that Connor has all of this perfectly under control, and Dylan just needs to be supportive.

"Dylan." Ryan snaps his fingers in front of Dylan's face. "You still with us?"

"What? Yeah." Dylan pockets his phone and shifts Chloe into his other arm, cradling her against his shoulder. She tucks her face against his neck and sighs a happy little baby sigh. Ryan is looking at him with narrowed eyes.

"Look, Dyl, I don't want to be nosy—"

"That's a lie," Dylan whispers to Chloe.

"You're damn right it is," Ryan says.

"Dad, language," Little John admonishes. Ryan apologizes and ruffles his hair before turning back to Dylan.

"I'm just trying to be supportive. I know Connor has been through a lot, and whatever he needs to do to get right with himself, that's fine. I want him to be okay, too. But not at your expense. Okay?"

"Yeah, okay," Dylan mumbles. His ears are hot. He nuzzles Chloe's head to distract himself, taking comfort in her softness and sweet baby smell.

"Dylan," Ryan says again, more sternly.

"I said okay," Dylan says, keeping his voice level so the kids don't get upset. "It's fine. Okay? It's complicated, but it's fine."

“Let your sister have a turn,” Ryan says, and as the kids negotiate Chrissie taking over stirring, he gives Dylan a sad little smile. “You know I like Connor plenty, but, just so you know, if you ever wanted to be hopelessly in love with somebody else, I would support that.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dylan mumbles against Chloe’s hair. She coos sleepily, her tiny fingernails scratching as her hand curls in the collar of Dylan’s t-shirt.

If Dylan quit hockey and didn’t tell anyone, he would be the easiest person in the world to find. He would be right here, every day.

The roadtrip is an unmitigated disaster. They pick up one of eight points and fall out of their wildcard spot, Ryan’s Lightning edging into it after not only beating Dylan’s Leafs, but their next three opponents. If it were the other way around, Ryan would be happy for him, which kind of makes it worse because Dylan feels petty and ungenerous for being grumpy about it. Sure, it’s only January, but hitting a losing streak while a division rival is stringing wins together like no one’s business is the worst.

Beecher jammed his shoulder halfway through the trip and is out through the All-Star break. Kevin isn’t practicing with them yet, but he’s skating almost every day. Joe, in the time-honored tradition of goalies everywhere, is day-to-day with a strained groin. And the only reason John hasn’t missed any games from his bad knee yet is because he’s half-robot. So the losing is a little more understandable than just suddenly sucking, but things are rough in Toronto.

They go out for beers about it.

“I’m just saying,” Nicky Robertson says, setting his glass down for emphasis, “That if fuckin’ Roger had called that fuckin’ high stick late in the third, we would have won that last game in Columbus. So I refuse to count it as a loss, emotionally.”

“Roger’s a good guy, though,” John says, with the air of someone who’s been in the NHL long enough to have a personal relationship with every official.

“Real good guy,” Morgan agrees. “The missed call was a tough break, though.”

“I didn’t care for it,” says Mikko, whose lower lip is still scabbed from the high stick in question. Morgan pats him on the arm.

“It’s okay, buddy, you’re still beautiful to us.”

“Hey, no one said that to me when my face got fucked up,” Dylan says.

“That’s because you look like a homeless raccoon and you know it,” says John.

“But,” Nicky adds reassuringly, “a homeless raccoon that works out.”

“Thanks, Nick, thanks so much for that.” Dylan says dryly, and takes a long pull of his Molson.

There is only so much that bitching about hockey away from the rink can do, but Dylan holds it in high regard as part of the process. Especially when the calls and bounces aren’t going your way. Excising all that negative energy in the form of complaining over drinks can absolutely be effective, and besides, it feels good to get out and have something like a social life. It’s a nice reminder of how much Dylan likes this team, likes hanging out with them and playing with them. Maybe it’s not quite the second-family feeling that he had with Alex or in Erie, but maybe that’s just because he hasn’t given it enough time.

He sends Connor a snap of his half-empty beer with the caption, _so necessary right now_. Connor texts back, _ha. was gonna ask if you needed to drink about it but that answers that._

Connor keeps doing this: hinting about hanging out again but never actually putting the ask out there. Dylan isn’t exactly being deliberately obtuse about it, but — okay, he is being deliberately obtuse about it. The way they left things was good but uneasy. He’s glad they’re texting regularly. He’s glad they can talk about the things Connor is doing with his documentary and the things Dylan is doing with his hockey team and it only feels stilted part of the time. It feels like they’re on the precipice of normal, which is maybe why Dylan is holding back. He’s not sure if he wants things to be normal, considering all the holes that ‘normal’ left in his heart. Maybe things can be different, but still good. Acting on that, or even articulating it, is beyond him right now. He’s buying time to figure it out.

Also, he doesn’t know how to ask for his copy of the book back. He does actually want to finish reading it.

“Dylan,” John says, swiping through his phone. “Why do your children keep sending me robot memes?”

Dylan blinks at him. “I’m sorry, _my _children?”

“Kev and Tanzy,” Mo says, as if this is common knowledge. Mikko and Nicky both shrug and nod. Dylan raises his eyebrows and feigns examining the shoulder of his button-down.

“Nope, no letter there, pretty sure that means they’re your children,” he says, trying not to look too pleased about the recognition of his excellent rookie-wrangling.

“Please, they worship you,” Nicky says with a laugh as Mikko clasps his hands together and flutters his eyelashes.

“Stromer, tell us about playing with Connor McDavid,” he says in an high-pitched child’s voice that is hilariously warped by his Finnish accent.

“I hate you all,” Dylan says, and grabs his beer to down the rest of it.

John says, “You didn’t answer my question.”

Dylan flips him off as he drinks.

“Chug, chug, chug,” chants Nicky. “Chug, chug, chug.”

They lose to New Jersey, even though the Devils are bad this year. They lose to Washington in William Nylander’s gleeful four-point return to Toronto. Dylan isn’t playing badly; none of them are playing particularly badly. They’re just not playing well enough to win. Despite the restorative powers of beers with the boys, the bounces still aren’t going their way. MacFarland yells at them in the locker room for having slow hands and slower feet. For not wanting it enough. For being okay with sitting in a wildcard spot for two weeks and then pissing it away. John and Mo call a players-only meeting to tell everyone they believe in them and have each guy say one small thing they’re going to do better next game. Kev sits slumped in his stall for the duration of it, looking murderous. When Dylan asks him what’s wrong afterward, he mutters, “The only thing I can do better next game is eat more snacks in the press box.”

Dylan hates when it’s a problem he can’t fix. He tells Tanner to take Kevin out for ice cream and goes to have Robin poke at his bad hip, just so he can grill her about Kev’s injury status while she does it. She is not amused. Her lecture about how brain health is more important than hockey games will haunt him.

Before the next game, Connor texts, _Do you mind if I come? Or is it good luck guests only_

_Pretty sure we havent lost in front of u yet_, Dylan shoots back. Maybe his deep-seated desire to not incur an ounce of hockey-related pity from Connor McDavid will be enough to propel the team to victory. A minute later, he adds: _Kev is feeling shitty about missing so much time so u should give him a pep talk_.

The conditions for the evening are not ideal for snapping the losing streak: the league-leading Hurricanes are in town, and their roster is not decimated by injuries. They’re on some obscene point streak and Svechnikov is probably going to hit 50 goals again this year. After morning skate, Dylan rattles off his lines about any team being beatable on any given night, how the Leafs are still good even if they’re struggling lately, about how shutting down key players will give them a chance.

As usual, that last part is way easier said than done. Carolina slaughters them and salts the earth afterward. Dylan’s face burns with rage and embarrassment as the Toronto faithful boo them off the ice at the conclusion of the 6-0 loss. His throat is sore from screaming at the officials, at his opponents, at his own team, and his blood is so loud and angry in his ears that he barely hears the few words of consolation some teammates manage. Most of them are stonily silent, avoiding each other’s eyes. Joe breaks his stick over the crossbar before leaving the ice, and Mikko yells a string of curse words at no one in particular as he stomps down the tunnel. Dylan stubbornly blinks back tears, because he’s a fucking adult and a fucking professional, and the last thing he needs is a postgame video where he’s crying over a midseason loss.

He holds it together for the media, mumbling through cliches with his hat pulled low, but afterward he lets himself sniffle pathetically in the shower for a few minutes, because no one can tell if you’re crying in the shower. Everyone else seems to be in a rush to get changed and head out, to leave this shitshow behind for All-Star Break vacations. Dylan has nowhere to be, though: he usually spends the break with Alex, but Alex is going to the actual All-Star Game. Ryan said he could come to Tampa — he and Sydney opted for no vacation this year because the kids have too much going on — but Dylan waffled on it for too long and the available flights were too inconvenient to justify the travel. His grand plans now are to stay at home and hang out with his parents. With nothing to look forward to but his empty apartment, he moves slowly through his postgame routine, and the room is nearly empty by the time he shuffles out.

“I guess I’m really not good luck,” Connor says.

Dylan nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Fuck, Davo,” he says. “I forgot you were here tonight. Shit, sorry. How long have you been waiting?”

Connor is leaning against the wall in the corridor, his wool winter coat unbuttoned over a soft gray sweater and jeans. When Dylan heads toward him, he shifts upright to meet Dylan halfway.

“Only like a year. Don’t worry about it.”

“Sorry,” Dylan says again, shaking his head and opening his arms. Connor wraps him in a hug, winding his arms tight around Dylan's ribs. Dylan sighs into it, squeezes the back of Connor’s neck, presses his nose into Connor’s hair.

“Fuck, that sucked,” Dylan says. Connor hums in sympathy, his hands splayed on Dylan’s shoulder blades as if he can draw the tension out of Dylan through his palms. As Dylan breathes, letting the game slough off him, he’s not so sure Connor can’t. He slides his fingers up into the soft hair at the nape of Connor’s neck, closing his eyes for a moment.

“At least you have a few days off now,” Connor murmurs.

“Yeah, I guess.” Dylan loosens his grip so they can unwind themselves. His hands want to stay on Connor; it’s so hard to convince himself to let go whenever he gets a moment like this. He compromises with a shoulder-squeeze, letting it linger, brushing at an invisible piece of lint with his thumb. “You know, I’m not actually going away for the break. You wanna grab lunch or something?”

Connor smiles wryly. “I would if I wasn’t going away for the break.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah,” says Connor. He shrugs the shoulder Dylan’s hand is on; Dylan lets it drop away. “Going to Edmonton for some filming. I’m too chickenshit to go while the team’s in town, so.”

“Well, shit.” Dylan has about a thousand questions right off the bat, and a thousand more hang ups about asking them. Probably around a million nervous notions about what the answers might be. He settles on, carefully, “You sure you’re up for going at all?”

“I paid my therapist a lot of money to convince me that I’m up for it, so I better be,” Connor says. He scuffs his shoe against the floor, hands in his coat pockets.

Dylan nods. “Okay, well, lunch when you get back, then.”

“For sure.” Connor tilts his head toward the elevators. “I have an early flight so I should get home. Just wanted to say hi before I took off.”

Dylan raises an eyebrow. “You know you didn’t actually say hi, though.”

Connor rolls his eyes, but fondly. “Okay, then, hi.”

“Hi. Bye.” They clasp hands, leaning in for a quicker, one-armed hug this time. “Sorry you had to watch such a shitty game. Good luck in Edmonton.”

Posted to Instagram at 9:27 PM (and seen by Dylan at midnight, as he lays in bed not sleeping):

A selfie in the press box by Kevin, beaming in his suit and toque. His head is tilted against Connor’s, who is smiling gamely, closed-lipped, but his eyes are crinkled at the corners.

**kev15keane** Been a tough few weeks not being able to help the boys thru this rough patch but even with the tough loss tonight I’m feelin optimistic and fired up thanks to this guy! Thanks so much for the talk @mcdavid97 so great to know my hero is a real gem!!

> When I got home from the hospital, I was completely useless. The combination of my physical injuries and the concussion made even the most basic tasks seem gargantuan. I could barely move without getting dizzy or nauseous, and when I did muster up the energy to do anything, I needed at least one extra pair of hands to help me, and it left my body aching. I spent most of my time in my bedroom in the dark, because lights and sounds both made me nauseous. I needed help to do almost anything, but I wasn’t well enough to travel, so my mom stayed in Edmonton with me until I could fly to Toronto to stay with her and my dad. She made sure I ate, helped me clean up when I puked, and patiently reminded me of things I forgot while my memory struggled to work properly those first couple months. If she wasn’t there to take care of me, I probably would have just laid in bed until my body gave up on living. All I could do was lay there and think about how I wasn’t going back to hockey, and I had no idea how to tell anyone that, and no idea what to do next. The future felt like an impossible chasm of nothing, and I could barely get to the bathroom without my mother’s help.
> 
> But slowly, I started to get better. I could sit up without vomiting; I could stand the sunlight for entire afternoons. My teammates, in and out of town once the season ended had been taking turns stopping by, but I’d asked my mom to turn them away until I felt better. The kitchen counters were slowly filling with flowers and gift baskets that made me feel guilty to look at. I was terrified that if I let my teammates in they would see how useless I was now and have no further interest in me, but I was also terrified that if I let me teammates in I would be too much of a coward to admit I didn’t want to come back.
> 
> Ryan came by one afternoon when my mom and I had already booked our flights back home. Next week, I would be leaving. I didn’t plan on saying goodbye in person; I was still injured enough that I felt a nice letter would have been understandable. Besides, almost everyone was home for the summer by then anyway. But when Ryan came by that time, my mom sent him in to see me without asking if it was okay. I was pissed about it at the time, but it was the right thing to do. It would take me a long time, a lot of therapy sessions, and some prescription antidepressants to really figure out that leaving hockey didn’t have to mean leaving everyone in hockey, but this visit was the first step.
> 
> “Wow, you look terrible,” Ryan said, which was true, so I couldn’t hold it against him. I was just glad he didn’t lie and say I looked good.
> 
> We sat and talked for a couple hours about a lot of things, but not about hockey. His family, my family, our friends and teammates. My extremely vague recovery timeline and plans to convalesce in the GTA. He showed me pictures of Leon riding one of his horses from a visit to BC right after the playoffs ended, which he tragically did not allow me to include in this book, but please feel free to ask him about them at any opportunity. I was very proud of myself for what I thought was a decent performance of a person who mostly had their shit together, but Ryan is way smarter than me, so when we finally ran out of other things to talk about, he looked at me and said, “You know, no one will blame you if you need some time away from hockey for a while.”
> 
> I started crying, and told him, “I don’t think I’m ever coming back.”
> 
> I didn’t believe him that no one would blame me, but I did believe him that he wouldn’t blame me. That was really all I needed for the moment.

Dylan’s parents’ house feels empty after their crowded Christmas, but the quiet there is different from the quiet in Dylan’s condo. It’s a warm quiet; a welcoming one. He’s several hours early for dinner, and his mom and dad are both out, so he lets himself in to wait, putting away the groceries he picked up for their pasta plans tonight before borrowing Connor’s book from their bookshelf and flopping onto the couch to read.

So maybe his earliness was premeditated. No one needs to know that.

Before he gave his copy away, he’d just gotten through the gruesome breakdown of all the ways Connor’s body got fucked up in that last game. His grade three concussion, his wrenched neck, the shredded ligaments in the knee he had so triumphantly rehabbed when he was younger. It had almost made him throw up, and it had made him so relieved to have Connor alive and well that Dylan invited him over for dinner, which had been a disaster. Maybe a disaster they needed, but a disaster nonetheless. Regardless, Dylan skips past the injury report to pick back up reading about the long recovery.

It’s hard in a different way than the medical stuff, because Connor doesn’t cut corners in describing his misery. Reading it now, a year and a half removed from the actual events, Dylan is overcome with longing to be there, to help, and he hates himself a little for not getting on a plane and going. Hates Connor a little for not thinking Dylan would drop everything if he would have given a single hint that he wanted Dylan there.

But he’s also proud. It’s a strange combination of feelings — sad and angry and proud. There aren’t many people who are bold enough to put such intensely personal things down on paper for the world to read, but Connor did. Dylan has barely talked to anyone about his summer of therapy, but Connor copied entire conversations into this book — his crying, his raging, his furious stubborn silences. The raw pieces of the Connor that Dylan has now.

Dylan is so engrossed in reading that he doesn’t notice when his mom gets home. He startles when she asks from the entryway, “Good book?”

He holds it up so she can see the cover. She laughs gently.

“I’m surprised you’re not crying on it.”

“No, you just missed that part,” Dylan says. The croak in his voice would betray him if he didn’t own up to it, anyway.

“Oh, sweetie.” His mom comes to sit with him, hugging him around the shoulders. He leans his head on hers, turning the book so she can see where in the story he is. She reaches out, smoothing the page down.

“I thought it was a very brave book to write,” she says. Dylan hums in agreement, and she takes the book from him, marking his place with a finger as she flips back to the photo section. “I love this picture of you two. You both look so happy.”

The Worlds picture, of course. Dylan smiles crookedly.

“It’s a good one,” he says. “We did a little bit about it for that documentary he’s making. I think you’ll like it.”

“I’m sure I will,” she says, idly turning a few more pages, Connor de-aging back into teenager as she goes. “It’s good you two are spending some time together. I know you’ve been missing him, and I’m sure Connor could use the love and support right now.”

Dylan swallows the lump in his throat. “Yeah.”

They sit for another minute, looking at the pictures. Then his mom kisses him on the cheek, handing the book back as she gets up. “Finish your chapter and then come help with dinner, okay?”

“Aye-aye.”

She throws him a smile and a salute. Once he’s alone again, though, he doesn’t turn back to the chapter. He turns back to the Worlds picture, instead. Traces his fingers along the edge of the glossy, full-page photo.

They really do look so happy. They _were_ so happy. The celebration at the buzzer is mostly a blur now, but Dylan remembers Connor screaming for him as he extracted himself from the hug pile, remembers Connor barrelling into him so hard they nearly fell over. He remembers loud, reckless laughing and cheeks wet with happy tears, Connor’s sweaty bangs against his lips, the flashes of a dozen cameras. He was so happy he thought he might burst.

Halfway through the All-Star Break, Dylan wakes up in the middle of the night. Groggily, he notes the blackness of his bedroom, proof of the inexplicable hour, and then, with deep confusion, the rattle of his phone on the bedside table. It’s face-down, a faint glow seeping out from the edges as it buzzes with an incoming call.

Oh. _Oh_. Dylan fumbles for it, squinting at the screen. His fingers are only half-awake, but he manages to swipe up before it cuts to voicemail.

“Hey, is everything okay?” he asks. His voice is thick in his throat, gravelly with sleep.

“Hey,” Connor says. “Sorry for waking you up.”

“What time is it?” Dylan checks the clock on his phone: 2:14 AM. Just after midnight in Edmonton. “Never mind. Jesus, Davo. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Connor says, then, “Sorry, that’s a lie. I just don’t like being here.”

Connor sounds faint, like Dylan is actually hearing him across four provinces instead of through the telephone.

“Fuck, I bet.” Dylan yawns and rolls over, stretching. He would kill for a glass of water. The kitchen is so far away. “You wanna talk about it?”

A long pause.

“It’s just kind of shitty and lonely,” Connor says. “And it’s hard not to feel like everyone hates me for betraying them.”

He’s in his hotel room, Dylan assumes. Any pro hockey player knows how lonely a hotel room can be, and in Connor’s situation — Dylan can’t imagine trying to unpack all that baggage all alone. That’s not really something the traveling TSN crew can help out with at midnight on a Friday.

Dylan sighs. “You know you didn’t betray anyone, right?”

“That’s a lie, too.”

“Okay, but we’re not talking about me,” says Dylan.

“We’re talking about you a little bit,” Connor says, quietly, but there’s a wry note to it. “We’re always talking about you a little bit. Like, part of the reason I called was I kind of just wanted to see if you would answer.”

“It’s two in the morning, Davo,” Dylan says. “I assume anyone calling at two in the morning is calling with an emergency.”

Another pause, but Connor’s voice is surer when it comes back.

“Well. Sorry for not having an emergency for you.”

Dylan smiles to himself, just a little, despite the way his heart rate is still coming down from the knee-jerk alarm of a late-night phone call. He settles drowsily back into his pillow. “Well, sometimes being sad is an emergency.”

Connor huffs, almost a laugh.

“We have this list of places we want to go just for, you know, walk-and-talk footage,” he says. “A greatest hits of Edmonton type deal. But my knee hasn’t stopped hurting since I got here, and I can’t tell if it’s psychosomatic or just because it’s too cold to function, which is really annoying when I’m trying to walk and talk. And we were supposed to go to the mall today and I completely punked out because I was afraid people would yell at me.”

Dylan’s hackles go right back up again. “Sorry, wait, have people really yelled at you?”

“A couple,” Connor mutters, like he’s embarrassed to admit it. “Mostly people have been really nice. Like, super nice. So I shouldn’t complain. But there’s always those few, you know? There’s nothing I can do to make them not hate me, so I shouldn’t care, but.”

“Yeah. Geez,” Dylan says. He can’t wrap his head around people knowing what Connor went through and still hating him for not sticking around to score goals for their hockey team. Maybe it’s hypocritical, considering the wounds he’s still nursing, but that’s different. That’s personal. He was never mad at Connor for quitting hockey; he was mad at Connor for quitting _him_. The hockey part was just caught up in the tangle of grief and confusion. Thinking about Connor stewing in this alone is making his heart hurt. “You want me to come fight them?”

“Please.”

“Davo, you know that strangers in West Edmonton Mall don’t get to have an opinion on what’s right for you, right?”

“I know.” He says it so soft and resigned that Dylan nearly books a plane ticket. Instead, he takes a breath, then another breath, in through the nose and out through the mouth, trying to loosen the knot in his chest. Part of him wants to rage about how it’s unfair, but another, pettier part wants to tell Connor that he’s the one who chose to insert himself back into the spotlight. He could have just let it all go. He chose this the same way he chose hockey.

But that’s unfair, too.

“Hey, Davo?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you even doing this? You already wrote the damn book.” Dylan closes his eyes and lays an arm over them. “I don’t know. I thought you didn’t care what people think anymore but obviously you do. I guess it just seems like you’d want to be free of it all at this point.”

Connor snorts. “Dyl, I care so much what people think it’s hard for me to function sometimes.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Dylan says.

There’s a long pause. Dylan lets it stretch out indefinitely into the darkness, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“I guess,” Connor says eventually, slowly, “I guess what it’s like is. It got to the point where I didn’t feel like any of it belonged to me anymore. So I wanted to make something that felt like it was mine. And that would make it okay.”

“That makes sense,” Dylan says softly. And it does. It’s a strange tide of relief over Dylan’s tired mind, that it makes sense.

Another pause.

A long, shaky exhale.

“I don’t know if it’s working, but it’s a little late to back out now, eh?”

“Davo.”

“Sorry,” Connor says. Dylan can picture him stubbornly scrubbing his eyes and cheeks the way he used to, trying to tamp the emotions down. “I’m not trying to dump all this on you, I swear. You can tell me to shut up.”

“Hey, I asked,” says Dylan. No response; just more sniffling. “Davo. C’mo—” He cuts himself off to stifle a yawn. “Sorry. C’mon. Just a couple more days then you’ll be back and we can get lunch and you can complain about Edmonton all you want.”

It doesn’t feel like enough. He wants to say: hold on, I’m coming, I’ll be there on the next flight. I’m coming, and we’ll do this together. We’ll make it okay. He won't, but he wants to.

“Okay,” Connor says. “Okay. Sorry. I should let you sleep.”

If they were teenagers, this would be where Dylan would squeeze Connor’s hand and bump their knees together under the blankets, maybe push his toes against Connor’s ankle. Connor would smile at him, half-hidden in his pillow, and find Dylan’s hand to hold onto while he drifted off. He almost always fell asleep first, and seeing him so peaceful helped Dylan sleep, too. Instead, when they hang up, Dylan rolls onto his side and looks at the dark open ocean of mattress beside him. Connor was there, not so long ago. In Dylan’s bed. A million miles away. Dylan stretches one arm out as far as he can reach, and closes his fingers around nothing.

To distract himself, Dylan sends out a call for social interaction over the next few days. It’s dire at first, because all his teammates are on vacation. Even John is gone, his whole family in Turks with the Gagners for the break. But guys start trickling back in, and Dylan lands himself in either the best or worst possible situation: Kevin and Tanner are coming over for pizza and ‘Chel. They are bringing beers. Dylan is almost definitely too old for this. But on the bright side, he has about eight more years of practice at the video game than they do, so he will not be easily defeated by youthful exuberance.

“Oh, come on,” Tanner groans, flopping back on the couch as Dylan caps off a DeBrincat hat trick against Tanner’s floundering Senators — his hometown team, which he insists can be good if you play them correctly, but is having trouble proving his claim. On the other end of the couch, Kev cackles and takes a long drink of his Barnstormer. He was only medically advised that he could drink again a couple of weeks ago, and maintains that he barely even touched a drop on his and Tanner’s All-Star Break vacation to Mexico. Judging from how giggly he is a beer and a half in, Dylan is inclined to believe him.

“Maybe the Sens just suck,” Kev says, grinning ear to ear. He extends one leg to kick Tanner in the hip, then withdraws it with a yelp when Tanner tickles his foot.

“You’re not wrong, Keaner,” Dylan says smugly from his safe perch in the love seat. They line up for the puck drop, and digital Jaret Anderson-Dolan wins Dylan another faceoff.

As Dylan and Tanner battle it out onscreen, Kev stretches, languid, sneaking his feet across the couch until they're in Tanner's lap. Tanner rolls his eyes, but lets them stay.

"I can't believe it took you this long to invite us over," says Kev. "We're such good company. We can keep you from becoming a boring old man."

"Or I can teach you not to suck at 'Chel," Dylan says. "And if I'm an old man, what does that make JT?"

"Ancient," says Tanner.

"The crypt keeper," agrees Kev.

"Ancient and sacred."

"He has surpassed time and corporeal form to become one with the Force."

"I'm gonna tell on you both," Dylan says.

"Hey, becoming one with the Force is a compliment."

Dylan sighs and reaches for his beer. "I can't believe I'm on a team with such giant nerds."

They are good company, though. They're gregarious and cheerful and unselfconscious. It reminds Dylan of having his brothers around. Kev is right that he should have had them over earlier; he's had almost no one over since he moved in, and the apartment feels better with people in it.

They come up for air when the pizza arrives, then dive right back into the game. Once Dylan finishes kicking Tanner’s ass, he surrenders his controller to Kev and lets the boys fire up a Leafs vs Leafs game while he gets everyone another round of drinks. It’s not late yet, but he’s starting to wonder if he’s going to wind up with two rookies crashing on his couch. At least at practice tomorrow they’ll all have the excuse of it being the first day back from the break.

Halfway through the first period, there’s a knock on the door.

“More pizza?” Tanner asks hopefully, even though they still have half a pie and a bunch of bread sticks left.

“Shouldn’t be, they’d buzz up,” Dylan says. Pretty much anyone would buzz up, except a neighbor, and he’s pretty sure they’re not being loud enough to elicit scolding. Well, other than Kev shrieking about uncalled penalties. But that was only for a minute. Dylan frowns and peels himself up from the love seat to investigate.

Standing outside his front door is Connor, looking like he just got hit by a train. He’s bundled up in his coat and scarf, the big suitcase he has in tow dwarfed by the size of the bags under his eyes.

“Your doorman let me up,” he says. Slush drips off his boots as he scuffs his foot against the floor. “Sorry. I know I should have called first.”

Dylan shakes his head. “It’s fine, I just—”

“Hell yeah, how’s it feel, ya pylon?” Tanner crows in the living room.

Connor wilts. “You have company.”

“Just Tanner and Kev. I can kick them out soon, come on.” Dylan reaches past Connor to haul his suitcase into the apartment, since Connor can’t bolt if Dylan has all his stuff. Connor slumps in after it, a portrait of reluctance.

“Stromer, he’s cheating!” Kevin wails.

“Suck it up, crybaby,” Dylan yells back.

Connor says, “I don’t want to ruin your night.”

“You’re not, I promise.” As if Dylan could send him away when he looks like he’s about to fall over. Dylan can barely send him away when he’s perfectly fine. He parks Connor’s suitcase in the foyer and collects Connor’s outerwear as he unbundles, biting his tongue when he sees that Connor is wearing Dylan’s old black Burberry hoodie under all the winter gear. Dylan knows how soft it is, and he wants to pull Connor close and press his face into it. To see if it smells like Connor yet. Just — not with his teammates in the next room.

But, “Dylan,” Connor says apprehensively, his hands twisting in the hoodie pocket. It’s that easy to make Dylan cave, and he wraps Connor in a hug, pressing a quick kiss to the side of his head.

“It’ll be fine, we’re just gonna let ‘em finish their game, okay?” he murmurs. Connor sighs, but nods, flipping his hood up like he’s preparing for battle. They both square their shoulders, and mount their invasion of Dylan’s living room.

“Okay, assholes,” Dylan announces. “You think you can behave for like an hour? Or do I have to kick you out now?”

“Connor!” Kev yelps, his controller going flying as he jumps to his feet to give Connor a hug. Connor, startled, pats the drunk rookie on the back while Tanner scores an extremely easy goal.

Once the hubbub of the celebrity sighting dies down, Tanner and Kevin get sucked back into their game, even with Connor McDavid watching from the love seat. He has his socked feet pulled up on the cushions, jammed under Dylan’s thigh, and he demurred when offered pizza but is now munching on a bread stick he stole when Dylan grabbed the rest of the carton to finish. He still looks exhausted, but there’s a softness to his face as he watches Kev and Tanner chirp and bicker and barely refrain from wrestling each other for the win.

“We weren’t that ridiculous, were we?” he asks quietly.

“I think we were worse,” Dylan stage-whispers, grimacing. Connor grins, sheepish, looking away.

“I’m going to murder you, you beautiful bastard,” Tanner says, although whether it’s to a fake teammate onscreen or his real teammate next to him is entirely unclear.

One of the sleeves of the borrowed hoodie has a thumb hole worn through at the cuff that Connor keeps fidgeting with, the fraying threads nervously unraveling. Dylan doesn’t care if it rips further, not really, but it’s a good excuse to reach over and still Connor’s hand. _Sorry_, Connor mouths at him. Dylan gives him a small smile and smooths his thumb over the fabric covering Connor's palm. It's not hard to understand why he's here. Edmonton was rough, and he didn't want to be alone. An empty apartment can be lonelier than an empty hotel room, because the hotel room, at least, is always temporary.

Connor squeezes Dylan's hand tightly before he lets go, his gaze flickering over to the rookies.

“Wow, you’re really gonna let him do that to you?” Dylan asks as Tanner’s Mo Rielly bowls over Kevin’s Kevin just seconds before the buzzer goes for the end of the second period. Kev swears creatively, hopping to his feet.

“I need another beer. Connor, you want one?”

“I want one,” Tanner says. Kev flips him off.

Another round of beers and twenty more minutes of fake hockey. As the boys line up for the puck drop, Connor shifts toward Dylan, slowly, like no one will notice if he’s subtle enough about it. Dylan lifts his arm for Connor to settle against him with the muscle memory of a million movies watched together, a thousand hockey games, hundreds of rounds of the boys playing video games. He’s warm against Dylan’s side, his breathing slow and measured. Dylan is struck with the desire to press a kiss behind his ear, or on the soft curve of his neck. He won’t, of course. He can’t.

“Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck _you_,” Tanner says, frantically mashing buttons.

Kev, with equally frantic button-mashing: “Oh, you wish, buddy.”

“They’re charming, eh?” Dylan murmurs, a little too close to Connor’s ear: it turns deeply pink, along with the back of Connor’s neck. Dylan swallows hard. Connor wedges his thumbnail under the label on his beer, ripping a line up the side of it. He’s only had a few sips; he probably accepted it just to be polite.

“They’re cute,” he murmurs back. “I’m glad Kevin is doing better.”

“Stop gossiping about us, we’re distracted, not deaf,” Tanner says. He squints at the television, twisting his controller to the side. The puck is stuck in a corner, and they both have several guys trying to dig it out.

“Personally I don’t mind if you gossip about me,” Kev says with a grin. “Besides, you know what’s really cute?” He pauses the game and grabs his phone, pointing the camera at the love seat.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Dylan says, starting to sit up.

“Too late!” Within seconds, Kev has resumed the game, Tanner cackling next to him.

Dylan slumps back into the seat. Connor doesn’t, his posture uneasy, so Dylan pulls him back into place, muttering, “I’m going to kill them both.”

“Don’t, it’s fine,” Connor mumbles, embarrassed enough that Dylan drops it, except for sticking his tongue out at Kev the next time Kev glances over with a smirk.

Kids these days.

The end of the game is a nail-biter, but Kevin wins it in the last seconds with a whoop and a victory dance that makes even Connor laugh. Tanner aims a kick at him, muttering about cheating, but Kev dodges it and swoops in to plant a loud kiss on Tanner’s forehead.

“My good luck charm,” he proclaims, beaming. Turns, points at Connor. “My other good luck charm, but I’m not coming over there because I’m scared of Stromer.”

“Good,” Dylan says, and holds out his empty beer. “Put this in the recycling when you take yours, eh?”

The rookies are perfectly amenable to being kicked out after they clean up, hugging Dylan goodbye and bickering about whose turn it is to pay for a cab as they head out the door. Dylan slides the deadbolt into place behind them, and turns to find Connor watching him, a tiny smile on his tired face.

“What?” Dylan asks.

Connor’s smile widens, almost impish. “They love you so much.”

“Yeah, well, they idolize you.”

Connor shrugs this off, his hands stuffed into his hoodie pocket. He looks better than he did when he walked in the door, more color in his cheeks, more light in his eyes. There’s half a thought in Dylan’s head about the restorative powers of coming home, but he pushes it away and nods at Connor’s suitcase where it’s still standing in the foyer.

“Planning on staying a while?” he asks.

“No, I just came straight from the airport.” There’s a mountain of fatigue behind the statement. Dylan feels a little bad for making him sit through video games with the rookies, but, honestly, it was kind of nice, too. To spend some time together that wasn’t fraught with history and expectations. To just — be. "I didn't want to go home and my therapist isn't available until tomorrow, so."

“So I’m guessing you had tons of fun in Edmonton,” Dylan says, getting rolled eyes and a snort in response.

“There are some people there who really don’t like me.” Connor’s mouth twists in the way that it does when he’s giving an even-keeled response to something that he’d really rather rage about. It’s not as subtle as he thinks it is. Never has been. Connor is great at wearing a lot of masks, but there’s a certain simmering type of anger that bleeds over no matter how hard he tries to temper it.

“Well,” Dylan says thoughtfully. “Fuck them.”

Connor makes a noise that's almost a laugh as Dylan folds him into a hug. He tucks his nose into the crook of Dylan’s neck and clings, just a little bit, as Dylan hums and sways to the ‘Chel menu music filtering in from the living room.

“Thanks for putting up with me,” Connor murmurs. “I know I’m not exactly your favorite person either.”

Dylan laughs, wry, because what he was thinking was how much easier everything seems when Connor is with him and Dylan doesn’t have to think twice about holding onto him.

“It’s fine,” he says into Connor’s hair. Clears his throat. “You want some tea or something? I think I have tea.”

The votes for tea are unanimous. Dylan makes two mugs, sweetened with maple syrup instead of honey the way Connor liked it in junior. By the time he carries them out to the living room, Connor is asleep on the couch.

Dylan turns off the television, lays his Leafs blanket over Connor, and sits down to drink his tea in the soft silence.

In all the futures they imagined, this was never one of them. They knew when they were teenagers that their dreams and goals would pull them apart, and they thought, naively, that friendship or love or whatever would keep them together. In the end, neither of them really wound up where they wanted to be, and they hurt each other over it. Sometimes on purpose, but sometimes, Dylan thinks, because when you’re struggling with the thing you’ve dedicated your life to, it’s hard to convince yourself you deserve other good things, and it’s so easy to punish yourself by punishing the people you love. Then, when you drift apart, the space between isn’t just inevitable, it’s earned.

Connor snores, loud and sudden. Dylan presses his hands to his face, laughing as he wipes his wet eyes. He really is hopeless. Maybe it’s not a bad thing.

He leaves Connor in the living room with a light on and goes to his bedroom. Stands on his toes to reach into the back corner of the top shelf in his closet until he can get a grip on the medium-sized box hidden there. _HOCKEY STUFF_, says the thick black sharpie on the side. It’s heavier than Dylan remembers. He sits on the floor, fighting with the packing tape until he gets a fingernail under one corner and it comes off suddenly, peeling the top layer of the cardboard up with an angry squeal. Dylan winces and breaks off the other end more carefully.

Inside the box is a whole mess of memorabilia from junior through Chicago. It’s the stuff that, when Dylan was packing, he couldn’t bring himself to throw away but didn’t know what else to do with. The stuff he planned to display got its own box, which is sitting open in the hall closet, waiting for Dylan to cave and ask his mom to help with. This box has programs from Erie, pucks from Arizona, some old camp jerseys, team t-shirts he hasn’t worn in years. Dylan unpacks methodically, re-folding the clothes, grouping mementos by location, then changing his mind and grouping them by type instead. Some awards from the OHL. His silver medal from World Juniors, and, at the bottom tucked inside a Roadrunners toque with a ridiculous pom on top, Connor’s gold medal from Helsinki.

The medal is bigger than Dylan remembers, slightly larger than his palm. His fingers curl around the edges where the tournament details are engraved in a delicate circle. Inside that, a pair of crossed, laureled hockey sticks with the vague impression of a rink behind them. The gold shines as if it’s been waiting for years to show off the way it glints at every angle. The silk ribbon is unfrayed but wrinkled, a vivid Finnish blue with a thin white stripe on one edge.

Dylan strokes his thumb over the warm metal, letting the ache of remembering bloom into his chest. The joy, the hope, the devastation of it all.

And now they’re here.

“Dyl?” Connor’s sleepy voice comes, and a moment later he appears in the doorway, rubbing his eyes, the blanket wrapped around his shoulders like an oversized fuzzy cape. He yawns wide, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“It’s okay.” Dylan follows Connor’s gaze to the collection of stuff around him, realizing with some resignation that there’s really no way to explain it away. Not that he's doing anything wrong, but the stacks of memorabilia, the medal in his hand — it all feels telling in an uncomfortably transparent way. Connor’s brow furrows.

“Is that mine?” he asks.

“Yeah.” Dylan’s hip creaks as he gets to his feet. “I mean, it’s mine now, but technically yeah.”

“Can I see it?”

Dylan brings it to him, but instead of taking it, Connor just looks at it in Dylan’s hand. He exhales, long and slow, and touches the medal with careful fingertips. “It feels like so long ago.”

“Feels like yesterday,” Dylan counters.

“That too.” One corner of Connor’s mouth curls up. Dylan watches his face as he traces the engraving: the way it goes soft with regret and affection, the way his eyelashes cast shadows on his cheekbones. His gaze flickers up, then down again when he sees Dylan watching.

Dylan tugs the medal away, sliding his fingers along the ribbon, and Connor bows his head as Dylan hangs it around his neck. Tugging gently on the gold, Dylan musters up a wobbly smile.

“Still fits.”

“Would be a little worried if it didn’t.” Connor tries to return the smile, but doesn’t quite get there.

Once upon a time, Dylan would have made a joke. Something like, _miracle it fit over your big head_, but he can’t bring himself to do it now. He smooths his thumb over a crease in the ribbon, trying and failing to rub the wrinkle out.

“We walked to that bridge after the party,” Connor says, his expression twisting ruefully. “All I could think about was how I didn’t want to leave you. But we hadn’t exactly been on great terms, and I was very sure your life was easier without me.”

Dylan wants to say: easier doesn’t always mean better, and he wants to say: you could have said it anyway. He wants to say: I was thinking the same thing, but I was very sure you had moved on from needing me at all. But Connor is close enough to kiss, and Dylan’s heart is in his throat, and if he tries to say anything, he’ll start crying.

Connor takes the medal off and folds it into Dylan’s hand, clasping both of his around it.

“It’s still yours,” he says. “Even if you want to keep it in the bottom of a box.”

He leaves Dylan standing there to go look at the other contents of said box, stepping carefully around the piles, leaning over to read the stacks of programs. The Leafs blanket, still wrapped around his shoulders, makes him look like a strange, sleepy king surveying his subjects. It feels like an excuse to give Dylan a moment to pull himself together, and Dylan takes it gratefully.

“I don’t understand what you want from me,” he says, finally, and Connor looks up at him.

“I love you and I want you in my life,” he says. Like it’s that simple.

“You didn’t a year ago,” Dylan says.

“I didn’t want anyone in my life a year ago.”

“But why couldn’t it—” Dylan sighs, knowing exactly how pathetic this sounds. “Why couldn’t it be different for me?

Connor tugs the blanket more tightly around his shoulders.

“I don’t know,” he says. “If I knew that I wouldn’t have had to write a whole stupid book about it.”

“So you don’t know why you didn’t want around me then but you know why you want around me now?”

“It had nothing to do with how I felt about you,” Connor says. He sounds so sad, suddenly, that it stops Dylan in his tracks. “I thought about you constantly. But there was this thing in my brain that kept saying over and over, no, you can’t have him back yet, you haven’t done enough, and I couldn’t get past it. And I can try to explain it better if you want me to, but it’s never going to totally make sense, and I can’t do it tonight, okay? I just can’t.”

Dylan lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

“But you love me,” he says.

“I thought I made that pretty obvious,” Connor says quietly. “Dylan, please don’t make me talk about this tonight.”

“Okay. Okay,” Dylan says, even though he wants to — fuck, he wants to. He wants to so badly that his hands feel unsteady, and he sets the medal down on his dresser before he does something monumentally stupid like drop it. He wants to make Connor say it again, _yes, I love you_, so he can parse out the hows and the whys and figure out how many hopes he can hang on those words. That would be the smart way to do it. It’s worked so far: taking his chances in the smallest possible steps, always leaving an escape route. Maybe it’s less the smart way to do it and more the coward’s way to do it. Maybe the problem is that Dylan hasn’t taken a single opportunity to be the brave one.

“I thought you were going to kiss me. On the bridge in Helsinki,” he says.

Connor’s eyes snap up to his. Dylan can see the way he works through the next words in his head before he says them out loud.

“I thought about it,” he says. “I didn’t think you would want me to. After the way things had been.”

It shouldn’t be so hard, Dylan thinks, to say something out loud that he’s thought to himself a thousand times over already. But he still has to look away when he says, “Honestly, it kind of broke my heart when you didn’t.”

“Oh.” Dylan glances back over, tentatively. Connor’s hands are white-knuckled where he’s clutching the blanket around his shoulders. He takes a step closer, swallows, and asks, “Is it too late for me to make it up to you?”

Dylan shakes his head.

Connor takes another careful step, then closes the space between them like ripping off a band-aid. The sudden proximity leaves Dylan light-headed. He covers Connor’s hands with his own, gently prying them from their death grip so Connor is holding onto him, instead. This close, Dylan can see Connor’s wet eyelashes, can see the place on his lower lip where his teeth have been worrying it. Connor’s grip on his fingers is so tight that it hurts, but Dylan could not care less.

Connor kisses him. Just for a moment, just long enough for Dylan’s knees to go weak with wanting more. When Connor pulls back, his eyes find Dylan’s, searching them with anxious hope.

Dylan pulls him in with both hands, fingers sliding into Connor’s hair, curling at the back of his neck. The blanket falls from Connor’s shoulders to pool on the floor, forgotten. Day-old stubble prickles Dylan's face as their mouths slide together, and Connor sighs into it like he had forgotten how to breathe. It’s not an easy kiss — Connor’s body is taut with nerves, and Dylan has too many years of wanting and waiting coursing through his veins to know what to do with his hands. He just holds on tight enough that they don’t shake.

“Dylan,” Connor murmurs, the word urgent and warm against Dylan’s lips. His hands are fisted in Dylan’s shirt. Dylan pulls back to look at him, feeling dizzy.

“Can we just,” Connor starts. His gaze moves skyward, looking for words, or courage, or maybe just taking a moment to mend the ragged edge of his voice. “Can we just pretend everything is normal?”

“Is this normal?” Dylan can barely keep up with his own racing thoughts. “I really don’t know what normal is.” It shouldn’t feel like a shameful confession, but Dylan’s ears burn.

“I don’t know, just—” Connor sighs, gusty. “Pretend you can look at me without wondering if you really want me here. Just for tonight. You don’t have to commit to it permanently or anything.”

“Davo,” Dylan says. He flounders, lost for words. Thumbs at Connor’s cheekbone, pushes his fingers back into Connor’s hair. Presses a kiss to his uncertain mouth.

“I want you here.” Another kiss, softer. “I want you here. I promise.” Another, on the corner. “I want—” Another, and Connor holds him there, makes it long and deep until Dylan’s toes curl. He sinks into it, pressing closer. Connor’s hands slide under his shirt, splaying on skin. There’s no way he doesn’t feel Dylan’s heart pounding. But he pushes his hands up further, rucking Dylan’s shirt up until Dylan ducks out of it, tossing it aside.

Maybe it should be stranger, or heavier, or more surreal to finally be here, with Connor’s hands on him, Connor’s mouth on his, to be tasting the catch of Connor’s breath and learning the way his body arches into Dylan’s, but Dylan can’t think of anything but wanting. Connor’s mouth is soft, not pliable, but soft and hungry and insistent. There’s a tension that Dylan wants to kiss right out of him, and he can feel it ebbing as Connor’s mouth opens under his. It’s a rush like Dylan has never felt before.

They stumble on the blanket and almost trip over a pile of t-shirts, but they make it to the bed, tumbling onto it together. Dylan feels like a fumbling teenager, obsessed with every gasp and movement, obsessed with every place Connor touches him, as if Connor's fingers digging bruises into his skin could tell him what’s in Connor’s head. They’re kissing deeper, a little bit desperate. Dylan’s lips buzz with it. _This is real_, he keeps thinking. Connor’s hands, his arms, his ribs, his hips and thighs and knees — they’re everything Dylan has known for years.

They get Dylan’s sweatpants off, then Connor’s hoodie and t-shirt, all in one go, and Dylan ducks down to scatter a line of kisses down Connor’s jaw and neck. In the summer, Connor will get freckles strewn across his shoulders, but right now, in the dead of winter, it’s all pale skin that scars pink under the slightest scrape of teeth. Dylan pushes him flat on the bed and takes advantage of that, earning a sound from Connor that’s half-laugh, half-moan.

“Are you giving me a hickey?” Connor asks. “What are we, teenagers?”

“Close enough,” Dylan says. He can’t help thinking of all the times he thought about doing this in billet bedrooms or hotels, before he really understood what he really liked or wanted beyond _that boy, there_. He thinks that Connor would have pulled away, too shy to wear a badge telling everyone that something happened in the bedroom, but this Connor lets his head fall back with a sigh, letting Dylan do what he wants.

Dylan wants: to kiss Connor until their lips are numb from it. To leave a trail of marks on him, secret, where no one else will see, but Connor will know. He wants to take him apart, to slide down the bed and taste him, to let Connor’s hands tangle too tightly in his hair while he sucks him off. He wants to rut against him until they both come, so he can taste the way Connor sounds. He wants to feel Connor fall apart inside him. He wants so much that it’s hard to know what to do first.

It’s Connor who slides his hand into Dylan’s boxers, saying, “let me,” into Dylan’s breathless mouth. He pulls a low, helpless noise out of Dylan, who fumbles with Connor’s jeans, shoving them down, spurred by the permission of Connor making the first move. Once Dylan gets a hand around him, slicked with his own spit, everything is fast and messy. Connor tucks his face against Dylan’s neck, his hot breath on Dylan’s skin doing almost as much to get him there as his hand on Dylan’s dick.

With all Dylan has fantasized about memorizing every moment of something like this, it’s all a bit of a blur, too urgent for finesse. The distant sound of himself, swearing; Connor muffling something that might be Dylan’s name against Dylan’s shoulder when he comes. He falters for a moment, a long enough moment for it to hit Dylan like a freight train, once again: this is real. But then Connor starts jerking him off again, his mouth at Dylan’s ear, murmuring, “Come on, Stromer,” and that’s it.

“Fuck,” Dylan says, once he can say anything. Because of the way they were lying, most of the mess has wound up on him, striping his stomach, but there’s some on Connor, too. His fingers and wrist, his hip, a streak across his navel. It’s hard not to stare.

Connor rolls onto his back, still catching his breath. He rakes his clean hand through his sweaty bangs, looking dazed. His jeans and underwear are still bunched around his thighs, which somehow seems more obscene than if he were lying there fully naked post-orgasm.

“Well, there’s something to be said for doing it like teenagers,” he says.

“I hope that’s not a complaint,” Dylan says. He’s at a loss about how he’s supposed to act, his brain still half-dazed. Flippant seems the closest to normal he can manage. But, holy fuck. That happened. That happened, and Connor is looking over at him with half-lidded, smiling eyes, one corner of his kissed-red mouth curling up.

“Definitely not. Just maybe next time we get the clothes all the way off and you don’t come on my favorite jeans.”

“Oh, that sounds like a complaint,” Dylan says, rolling over with a groan onto his elbows. It’s a bad move — now he’s going to have to wash the duvet _and_ his boxers. And Connor’s favorite jeans, apparently. But he can see Connor’s face better from here, which is much more important.

“Yeah, but just a small one.” Connor squirms the rest of the way out of his clothes, kicking them off the end of the bed. He stretches, and Dylan takes in the sight of him, renewed hunger curling low in his gut. When Connor looks over, he must see it on Dylan’s face, because his own expression goes painfully soft. Dylan scoots up to kiss him, just because he can. He means it to be brief, but Connor keeps him there with a hand on the back of Dylan’s neck and draws it out, deep and open-mouthed, their bodies fitting against each other again.

When Connor finally lets him go, Dylan can’t help the smile on his face. “That was not a complaint.”

“No.” Connor smiles back, small and sheepish.

Dylan should be asking what happens next, probably. Or whether Connor is going to regret this in the morning, but — god, he doesn’t care right now. He has had so few perfect moments in his life, and he wants this one to last. Connor tugs him into another long, easy kiss, and he lets himself sink into it.

Later, after they’ve cleaned themselves up, after they’ve bundled the duvet to the floor to deal with tomorrow, after Dylan has loaned Connor basketball shorts and a t-shirt to sleep in because going through his suitcase just feels like too much work, and after Dylan has loaned him a toothbrush, too, with a flood of wild thoughts about it staying there on Dylan’s sink, a permanent fixture, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, they climb into bed with the intention of actually sleeping. It’s late. They huddle under the remaining covers, close enough that their knees are bumping.

“Thanks for letting me stay,” Connor says, quiet in the dark. “Even though you had company.” His hand is on the mattress between them. Dylan touches it, soft fingers on Connor’s palm.

“I think it worked out pretty good for me,” he says.

Practice is surprisingly upbeat for a team that left for the All-Star break too upset to speak to each other. A little vacation worked wonders: guys are loose, tanned — or a little sunburnt, in some cases. Kev and Beecher are both skating with the team in non-contact jerseys. The passes are crisp; the goalies are sharp. Even MacFarland's mood is light; when he barks at them to concentrate, it's completely without bite. It's as if everyone took a deep breath and realized things were not as dire as they seemed. They only need a few wins to get back on track.

Dylan is flying. The cold rink air feels good on his face, and the ice feels good under his skates. The pucks are going right where he wants them to. He snaps passes and shots off with giddy relief as he whizzes through the drills.

When he left his apartment earlier, Connor was on the couch with a second cup of coffee and one of the leadership books from Dylan's meager collection. Connor didn't used to be much of a reader either, but he developed a better appreciation for books after writing one of his own, he says, and besides, when he was recovering, he was able to look at pages much sooner than he could look at screens. Now he finds it relaxing. Dylan doesn't know why he likes knowing that new detail so much, but he keeps thinking about it and smiling to himself.

"Stay as long as you want," he said on his way out the door. Connor will be gone by the time Dylan gets back, for that appointment with his therapist and some work at the studio, but Dylan liked the thought of him lingering for a lazy morning in Dylan’s apartment. He’d leaned over the back of the couch to kiss the top of Connor's head before he left, and Connor had twisted to pull him down for a goodbye kiss that was longer than expected. Dylan can still feel it in his toes.

On his line's next turn at an odd-man rush, he dangles Dima right onto his ass and sauces the puck to Tanner for the world's easiest tap-in. Tanner whoops, jumping on Dylan for a hug like he just scored a go-ahead goal. The guys laugh and holler, banging their sticks on the ice.

"Fuckin' rights, boys!" Someone wolf-whistles. "Atta boy, Stromer!"

He grabs lunch with some teammates, where he buys Dima’s beer to make up for breaking him at practice, then goes home and sprawls on his bed, thinking about Connor. Because what else would he do? He’s hopeless.

The picture that Kev took of them last night is still on his Insta story. First, there’s a boomerang of Tanner playing ‘Chel, making a face and mashing buttons: _getting his ass kicked by @dylstrome_, with a crying-laughing emoji. Then Dylan and Connor, which Kev managed to snap before Dylan started threatening him, so they actually look relaxed: Connor leaning back against Dylan, Dylan’s arm draped around him, both of them just noticing the camera. Kev has captioned it, _My Parents_, smiling grabby-hands emoji, heart heart heart heart heart. It’s ridiculous, and it shouldn’t make Dylan smile so much, but it does.

He texts Connor: _come over when ur done working?_

Connor says: _You come to mine? I still need to unpack_

It’s so tempting to tell him, just bring your suitcase back over. It’s a week’s worth of clothes, right? Stay for a week. Stay longer. Borrow mine. But instead, like a sane person: _Just tell me when_.

He is having a hard time being rational about this. It’s been less than twenty-four hours, and he’s so ready to be all in. Call it here, that’s the game, this is forever now. We really fuckin’ did it, boys. Nothing can go wrong now.

Connor texts: _Should be home by 6, come over whenever_.

Dylan will, and he’ll bring dinner, he says. And then they can talk, if Connor wants to talk. If Connor doesn’t want to talk — they can always talk tomorrow. Or whenever. Dylan is not jumping to spend the evening dissecting his feelings when they could just enjoy being together. They deserve that, don’t they?

Maybe he’s jumping the gun. Or maybe it really is all going to all going to finally work out. What he needs is someone to tell him it’s going to be okay.

He calls Alex.

“Please tell me I’m not out of my mind,” he says as soon as Alex answers.

“Uh,” Alex says. “Gonna need you to be a little more specific there, buddy.”

“Davo.”

“On the right track, but keep thinking smaller.”

Dylan sighs, blowing his bangs off his forehead. “I don’t think you want the dirty details, buddy.”

“Oh — oh. Oh. Hang on a sec, okay?” There’s a clatter on the other end of the line, followed by the faint sound of Alex calling for his wife. Muffled conversation and something like a squeal. Dylan scrubs a hand through his hair.

A moment later, clearing his throat: “Okay, Dyl, I’m here.”

“Is Lyndsey there, too?”

“You think I’d butt into a private phone call?” she asks.

“Hi, Lynds,” Dylan says. “How’s the baby?”

“An adorable blob of somewhat-functioning cells,” she says cheerfully. “How’s Connor?”

“Also an adorable blob of somewhat-functioning cells. What? It’s true.” He has to wait for her to stop cackling before he continues. “Look, I’m not calling to provide a play-by-play, I’m calling for blind reassurance.”

“Well, I can’t tell you that you’re not out of your mind, because you are pretty often out of your mind,” Alex says.

“And that’s part of why we love you,” Lyndsey adds,

“But you’re often out of your mind for, like, the right reasons. You know?”

Dylan laughs. “Wow, that isn’t helpful at all.”

Lyndsey says, “My only request is to please plan the wedding for when the baby is old enough to be your adorable ring bearer.”

“Lynds!” Dylan and Alex both admonish.

“What? We’re all thinking it.”

“Dyl,” Alex says. “Are you freaking out?”

Dylan closes his eyes. He can picture the pair of them standing with the phone on speaker, Alex’s arms draped around Lyndsey, her hands on her big baby belly. He misses them. He wants a hug. “Not yet, but I’m probably gonna soon. Either that or I’m going to do something completely over the top and freak him out, and then he’s not gonna speak to me for another year and a half.”

Lyndsey clears her throat. “If he does that, then we all dump him.”

“It really would help us give better advice if you told us what’s happening," Alex says.

With a groan, Dylan flops his forearm over his face. “It’s really not appropriate to talk about in front of the baby.”

“Okay, cool, just wanted to verify that this is indeed about you two boning down,” Alex says. “And you’re right, I don’t need the details.”

Lyndsey says, “Make sure you DTR!”

“Not just DTR,” Alex cuts in. “Like, if he’s not on the level with your undying love, you both need to scale back immediately. I’m serious. Put yourself first here.”

“God,” Dylan mumbles. He knows they’re right, but, as always — easier said than done. Also, so unappealing when there are so many better options than talking. “Okay, okay. I got it. I promise.”

“Talk to him. And make him talk to you. It’s gonna be okay, buddy.”

“We love you, Dyl.”

“Love you both. Kiss Dylan Junior for me.”

He hangs up before anyone can yell about the baby name.

Maybe he shouldn't have called them. He and Connor didn’t talk about telling anyone, but also, Connor should have expected that one if not both of Alex or Ryan would get an earful about it sooner rather than later. He can apologize later, if necessary. After they talk.

Turns out, enjoying being together is much more appealing than talking about feelings.

Connor has unpacked; dinner has been eaten; light conversation about how their respective days went, punctuated by lingering looks and sheepish smiles, has been had. Now, they are sprawled along the length of the couch in Connor’s living room, making out while a movie plays on the big screen. Scrolling through the on-demand choices, Connor had suggested _The Martian_ because “not much happens in it.” That sounded ideal to Dylan. He has never seen it, and now, halfway through, could not tell you a single thing that happens. He is much more preoccupied with the warmth of Connor’s body underneath him, the lazy way their legs tangle together, Connor’s toes poking at Dylan’s ankles, the unhurried way Connor draws the kisses out, letting each one linger.

Dylan could get used to this. He _wants_ to get used to this. He wants this to be their normal.

The mouth-shaped bruise on Connor’s neck from last night is low enough that it is mostly hidden by the collar of his shirt. Dylan can’t resist the urge to bite at it again as Connor groans and pushes him away.

“Nope, too sore already,” he says. “Do you have any idea how much turning my head my job involves? Too much. I learned that today.”

Dylan props himself up on an elbow to look at Connor. “I’m so sorry for your hardship.”

“You’re not, but that’s okay,” Connor says, pulling him into another kiss. They shift, Dylan settling between Connor’s legs, and it’s easy to get lost in the easy rhythm of the kissing, the friction, the slow build of heat between them. Dylan can’t get enough of the way he can roll his hips down and make Connor moan, feeling the sound as much as hearing it. It’s amazing how, despite his sheepishness before and after, in the moment Connor is so unabashed about what he wants. He’s the one who pulls Dylan closer. grinding against him, and he’s the one who reaches blindly for the remote to turn the TV off, murmuring in Dylan’s ear, “Nothing is gonna happen on Mars, wanna just go to the bedroom?”

Yes, of course Dylan does. They start to leave a trail of clothes from the couch to the bed, until Connor has his hands on the fly of Dylan’s jeans and Dylan nips at Connor’s mouth and says, “I feel like I should be carrying you romantically to bed.”

Connor laughs, short and surprised.

“How did I know you were going to be a sap about this?” he asks, but he plants his hands on Dylan’s shoulders and hops up, his thighs gripping Dylan’s waist. Not expecting it, Dylan's hip twinges, and he needs a moment to steady himself, but he holds Connor’s weight easily. Connor tugs Dylan’s head back for an awkwardly angled kiss, his mouth curved with a smile.

In practice, carrying Connor to bed feels ridiculous, but Dylan kind of loves it anyway. He’s careful laying Connor down on top of the duvet, stealing a kiss before straightening to strip out of his half-undone jeans.

“Could get used to this,” Connor says, propped up and watching. He waggles his eyebrows when Dylan looks up. Dyl who is not easily embarrassed, feels his face flush pink.

“Shut up, Davo,” he says, and climbs onto the bed to give Connor something better to do than make him blush. They fall back into kissing, messier, hungrier. Connor rolls them over, straddling Dylan, tilted slightly to favor his bad knee. He leans down to fit their mouths together again; Dylan slides his hands up the curve of Connor’s back, memorizing the knobs of his spine and the jut of his shoulder blades.

“I bought condoms,” Connor says, his lips and beard brushing Dylan’s skin. “I figured, if we’re gonna be messing around — should probably be prepared.”

Something about that, something about Connor thinking about this, planning for it — Connor thinking about what he wants to do with Dylan, even when Dylan isn’t around — makes a certainty Dylan didn’t know he was waiting for settle deep in his chest.

Dylan tilts his chin up, catching another kiss. “Prepared is good.”

Prepared is very good.

Dylan goes to practice the next day with thigh muscles that are sore in ways he hasn’t felt in ages, and he figures that’s more than fair payback for the hickey.

A California roadtrip in the middle of the winter is usually a welcome occurrence. For all of Dylan’s NHL career that matters, he’s played in cold cities, but as much as he loves a real winter, with snow and ice and the works, the brief trips to warmer climates have always been nice. And usually, he’d be looking forward to some time with the guys after a week apart for the All-Star Break. Beecher is officially back in the lineup, and Kev is traveling with them, day-to-day. This roadtrip isn’t just a trip to the beach; it will hopefully be a pivotal moment in their season. The moment they win their playoff spot back and hold onto it.

Dylan is nervous about leaving Connor alone in Toronto. Which is stupid, because he’s not actually going to be alone, and he’s spent plenty of time in the city functioning perfectly fine without Dylan hanging around constantly anyway. His parents are half an hour north in the suburbs. His therapist is right fucking there. He’ll be seeing his documentary crew almost every day. He’ll do his work, and then come home and do boring Connor things like read or play long-distance ‘Chel with Cam. But the thing is, they’ve spent all four nights together since Connor got back from Edmonton, and Dylan is afraid that leaving for a week will change things. That it will give Connor too much time and space to rethink all this.

Maybe it’s a good thing. Take a little space, figure out how they’re going to talk about the important things. Dylan should look at this as an opportunity.

But despite repeating this to himself all the way to the airport, by the time they hit cruising altitude he’s already fiddling with his phone, waiting for Connor to respond to his snap of Mississauga growing tiny in the distance during takeoff, sad emoji, waving emoji. Connor is surely at the studio by now — he left when Dylan did, after Dylan delayed them a full ten minutes with making out. Dylan’s lips are still a little raw from it. Connor hasn’t shaved in a few days. The point is, Connor is probably busy. It’s fine.

“Stromer,” Beecher calls. “Come play cards, we need a fourth.”

It’ll make him set his phone down for five minutes, so Dylan goes.

Somewhere over the Prairies, a minor commotion a few rows back interrupts the card game. It starts with a yelp and some sounds of struggle, and then Tanner tumbles out of his seat into the aisle, holding a phone out of reach of Kevin's grabbing hands. Dylan, along with most of the cards group, stands up to see what's going on.

"Stooop, Tanner, give it back," Kev whines. He tries for the phone again, but Tanner scrambles to his feet and climbs over Morgan into an empty window seat. He sticks the phone in the back of his sweatpants and sits, arms crossed, a statue of stubbornness.

"JT's gonna come back and make you move in like two minutes," Morgan says, closing his book of crossword puzzles with his finger marking his page. "If you want my protection, talk fast."

"Kev's trying to fight people on the internet," Tanner says.

Standing sock-footed in the aisle, Kev folds his arms across his chest. "I'm just trying to share a perspective."

Tanner rolls his eyes and says again, lower, head inclined toward Morgan, "He's trying to fight people on the internet."

Morgan levels a look at Kev a long look.

“Okay, but they're wrong!" Kev protests.

"When aren't they wrong?" Morgan asks dryly. "Tanner, give him his phone back. Kev, don't fight people on Twitter or whatever." He slaps his palm on his tray table. "Mo has spoken."

"And just in time, too," John says, ambling back up from the plane's restrooms. He points at Tanner. "Whittaker. Move your ass." Tanner digs the phone out of his pants and scrambles to comply; John turns his finger to Kev. "Keaner, what did I tell you about fighting on Twitter?"

"That it's a waste of time unless you're funny enough to go viral."

John's expression doesn't even twitch.

Kev heaves a sigh. "You said there are always better things to do."

"Atta boy." John ruffles Kev's blond mop of hair before reclaiming his seat.

Dima, still sitting with his cards, punches Dylan in the calf. "Your turn, buddy."

"Owww." Dylan makes a big show of rubbing his leg before taking his turn, quickly drawing, scanning his hand, and discarding one of his useless spades. He glances over his shoulder back toward the rookies. "What do you think all that was about?"

"Kev hasn't learned not to read the comments yet," Nicky says. The other guys hum and shrug in agreement. With reluctance, Dylan files it away for being nosy about later and returns his attention to the card game. He doesn’t play regularly, but when he does, he plays to win. After all, bragging rights are the most valuable currency there is.

They beat the Sharks in San Jose, grinding out a gutsy 4-3 win in a game where they gave up multiple leads. No one is particularly happy with the execution, but they’ll take the points. Beecher nabs a goal and an apple in his first game back, so he’s feeling vindicated, and Dylan dishes two great assists but can’t get the puck to go into the net himself. It’s fine. Sometimes those nights happen. The important thing is he did his job and helped his team and they’re one step closer to reclaiming their wildcard spot.

Walking to the bus after the game, Dylan is tired but in good spirits, shooting off some replies to Ryan’s long series of texts describing an incident that evening with Little John, Chrissie, and a failure to understand the difference between magic markers and sharpies. It seems like a pathetic thing to be proud of, but he’s pleasantly pleased with himself for getting two days into the trip without going into withdrawal or anything. Yesterday, he went out to dinner with the guys, snapped Connor a bunch of scenic pictures of San Francisco, and afterward they FaceTimed, both of them in bed with their glasses on, which felt extremely cozy. Connor finds the interpersonal relationships of his documentary crew fascinating, and he spent half an hour giving Dylan updates on Elijah’s camera tech crush (cute but hopeless), Bill’s new overeager intern (cute and not hopeless), and a burgeoning frenemy situation between the production assistants (less cute, but Connor is lowkey pursuing a hunch that they’re sleeping together, which he will never tell anyone at the studio because he pretends he’s above the gossip).

It was hard to hang up. Dylan didn’t sleep great, but he slept enough. He had a good pre-game nap today to make up for it.

The bus is filled with the low hum of chatter when Dylan climbs on board. He heads to his usual seat, but Tanner grabs his arm, tugging him in to talk in a low voice.

“Can you talk to Kev?” he asks. “He’s sulking and I don’t know how to fix him.”

Kevin has been moody since they landed. He thinks he’s ready to go, but the team doctors haven’t given him the go-ahead yet. It’s doubtful that there’s a cure beyond letting him play hockey. Dylan gives Tanner’s arm a squeeze and goes to take the seat beside Kev anyway.

“Hey, bud.” Dylan bumps their shoulders together as he sits. “You doin’ okay?”

Kev tips his head back against the seat, exhaling loudly through his nose. “I’m fine.”

“Very convincing.”

“I’m tired of not playing.” Kev looks over at Dylan, his face twisting with discontent. “Do you think they’ll let me play tomorrow?”

“Hope so.” Dylan raps his knuckles on Kev’s thigh. “We miss you out there. But we’ll see, eh? If not tomorrow then in LA for sure.”

The bus growls into gear under them, lurching forward before evening out into an easy trundle. They’re going straight to the airport for a matinee against Anaheim tomorrow, which is the only reason Dylan knows it’s a weekend. Everything blurs together during the season even when he’s not distracted by shacking up with his — whatever Connor is. If he didn’t have hockey, he probably wouldn’t have even known if it was day or night for that stretch before they left.

Alex is going to absolutely eviscerate him when they have dinner tomorrow night. As if it’s his fault that fooling around is so much more appealing than talking. Besides, they’re doing fine. If anything, Dylan is one of the less dramatic people on his hockey team right now.

“Hey,” Dylan says. He nudges Kev. “What were you so fired up about on the plane yesterday? When Tanner stole your phone.”

Kevin makes a noise of deep distaste. “I just wanted to let some people know how stupid they sounded pumping up the new McDavid piece. Tanner was right that it was a waste of time, but sometimes people are just so wrong that you really wanna say something, you know?”

“Yeah, for sure,” Dylan says, then, because he can’t help himself, “Which Davo piece was that?”

“You know, just one of those dumb pieces that’s like, ‘We should stop giving McDavid attention because he’s a quitter and quitters don’t deserve attention’.” Kev waves a dismissive hand. He clearly thinks Dylan follows the media much more closely than Dylan does, because this is the first Dylan is hearing of any pieces like that. The stubborn determination he developed to avoid Connor McDavid news is habit at this point. His main source of Connor McDavid news is Connor himself.

Connor didn’t mention it, but then again, Connor almost never talks about his own media coverage. Dylan’s been assuming it’s because he doesn’t engage with it himself — he has people he pays to do that for him — but he wonders, suddenly, if it’s also because he assumed Dylan doesn’t want to hear about it, considering what a big deal Dylan made about not reading his book.

“Well,” Dylan says, carefully level. “It’s nice you wanted to stick up for him. I think he’d appreciate the thought.”

“I guess.” Kev frowns, picking at a hangnail on his left thumb. “It just sucks when you see people saying these shitty things, just, being the worst bullies, and you can’t just be like. Look, you’re wrong and this is why.” He sighs. “I mean, I also think it sucks we don’t get to watch him play anymore — don’t tell him I said that, I don’t want him to feel bad about it. But like, he wrote a whole book about how unhappy he was by the end of it, I don’t understand how people can be out here calling him a bad person for it.”

He winces as he rips a tiny piece of skin further than it wants to go. Dylan reaches over to tug his hands apart, reminded all too much of Connor and his endless nervous fidgeting.

"Sometimes you just have to let people be wrong," he says. This type of advice is not something he feels qualified to give. Being calm and level-headed has never been his wheelhouse. And besides, he always feels like he's talking about a fake situation when Connor comes up, because people outside of his innermost circle assume Dylan has been a supportive and patient and caring friend through the whole ordeal. Like he's so much better than he is. "I guess if you really wanna say something, be thoughtful about it. And probably don't do it on Twitter." Kevin is frowning at his wounded thumb. Dylan doesn't feel helpful at all. The bus rumbles onto a ramp to the highway, tilting them both gently sideways for a moment.

"I guess I just want something useful to do," says Kev.

Dylan grins a little, sympathetic. "Bud, I totally get that. But trust me as someone who knows Connor really well when I say he wouldn't want you getting in fights on the internet for him. He'd probably tell you to go skate some laps instead, eh?"

Kevin huffs, but smiles. "Tell him I'm pulling for him?"

"I think he knows that, but hey. Why don't we say hi anyway?" Dylan pulls his phone out, opening Snapchat. Takes a selfie of the two of them, no filters, just Kev looking too pleased and Dylan holding up a backwards peace sign with his free hand. Kev watches him type out the caption: _Guess whos gettin in the lineup this week boiiiiiiiii_

It's about 3AM Toronto time, so there won't be a response until tomorrow, but Dylan promises to let Kev know when it comes.

"Can I ask you something?" Kev asks.

"Of course."

"Is it weird that you’re still playing when he’s not?”

It’s not a question Dylan expected, but then again, he’s not sure what he expected. It’s an easy one, at least.

“Super fucking weird, yeah.”

They thought they would be grizzled veterans together. They talked about long careers, as long as the league would have them. They never really talked about after. After was supposed to be decades away. Dylan is still years from even thinking about retirement, and watching Connor build his life around anything other than the rise-and-grind of a professional athlete is strange in a way he can’t quite articulate.

Kevin tips to the side, resting his head on Dylan’s shoulder. He sighs, long and slow, his body sagging as the breath goes out of him. Past him, through the window, the San Jose suburbs whip by anonymously in the dark.

Kev does indeed draw into the lineup the next day against Anaheim. It might not technically be due to Connor wishing him luck via snap the next morning, but there’s no way anyone is convincing Kev that Connor McDavid isn’t a good luck charm. The message for the rookie is cute, but Dylan prefers the one before that: Connor, sleepy and still in his pajamas, holding a full coffee mug up to obscure half his face. _West coast games = fuck my bedtime I guess_, it says. Dylan spends the whole morning daydreaming about waking up with him.

Dylan could get used to this. Going out on the road, coming home to Connor. Texting and talking in between.

The game that afternoon is sloppy. The time difference combined with the early afternoon start has left the whole team discombobulated, and no one is on their A-game. They get some chances, but they can’t seem to finish them. Dylan is distracted by Kev, who doesn’t have his legs back yet and is mad about it. The way Dylan has always played is to try to slow the game down around him, to read the room and pick the smartest play. It requires a lot of focus, and so sometimes it backfires when Dylan is preoccupied. It is not their line’s best showing.

Their only saving grace is that the Ducks aren’t very good, so they manage to hang in there with nothing but a lucky bounce of a goal from the fourth line to get them to overtime, where they cough up a three-on-one that ends in De Leo roofing it over poor Joe’s left shoulder. But they got a point out of it, so the mess of a game isn’t a total waste. McFarland refrains from ripping into them too much. As long as they pull their heads out of their asses for LA, he won’t have to start benching anyone.

“So there’s your insider info,” Dylan tells Alex that evening over the ahi tuna nachos they’re splitting on the oceanside patio of a waterfront restaurant in Manhattan Beach. “Our game plan for Monday. We’re going to not have our heads in our asses.”

“Sounds like a promising strategy,” Alex says. He peers at Dylan over the tops of his sunglasses. “We’ll be ready for it.”

The weather in Los Angeles is as nice as advertised. Almost twenty degrees — that’s 65 American degrees, according to Dylan’s phone. American degrees always seem alarmingly high, but the temperature is perfect for jeans and t-shirts and loafers without socks. The sun is big and orange, bobbing on the horizon as if it’s only thinking about setting, scattering copper sparkles across the water. It’s nice enough, with the weather and the company, that if circumstances were different, Dylan would be nursing a tiny desire to stay.

Alex is tanned, happy, and deliberately torturing Dylan by not asking about Connor.

“I gotta say I’m pretty offended that Lynds decided she had better things to do than hang out with me,” Dylan says. Lyndsey wouldn’t be torturing him. She’s too nosy.

Alex shrugs. “Baby shower. Not hers. There are so many pregnant people down here right now. She says she’s going to do reconnaissance for what gifts we should demand.”

“Well, I already bought your baby gifts.” Dylan snags a wonton chip from under Alex’s fingers, stuffing it smugly into his mouth.

“I’m not putting my baby in Leafs gear,” Alex says.

“It’s not _all_ Leafs gear,” Dylan protests with a full mouth. Some of it is Canada gear. But that’s a surprise.

They get all the way through the nachos and halfway through their entrees before Dylan caves.

“So are you going to ask me about Davo or not?” he asks around a mouthful of food.

Alex grins. “I was waiting to see if you’d bring it up.”

“Oh, nice.” Dylan rolls his eyes. “I’m trying to be so polite not dominating the conversation with my own problems and you’re going to make _me_ bring it up? Uncool, Brinks.”

“Sure, but kinda funny, too.” Alex is unfazed, because he knows he’s much cooler than Dylan. It’s just a fact. But his expression softens, fond. He kicks Dylan’s foot lightly under the table. “Okay, spill, then. You’re clearly dying to. Good news or bad news?”

“I think good news? I mean, things are — good.” Dylan is blushing, he knows it. Alex is kind enough not to mention it. “I don’t know. It’s a weird situation, but he’s still, you know.” Still so deeply lodged in Dylan’s heart that Dylan can’t say no to him. Still the person who makes him the happiest, in the moments when Dylan can let go of everything that happened. “It’s Davo.”

“Yeah, and you would love him if he retired to carve animal figurines for tourists in Tuktoyaktuk,” Alex says. “We had a good talk when he was down here. He was real torn up about whether you wanted him around or not, and I was like, Davo, please remember who we’re talking about here. Dylan would follow you into battle and then shield you bodily from the bullets.”

Dylan squints. “I’m not sure if you’re making me sound romantic or pathetic.”

“Little of both.”

“Great.”

“Mostly just loyal, though.” Alex shrugs, spearing a jumbo shrimp out of his pasta. “I mean, anyone who knows you would say that. Not the Davo part. You’re loyal. It’s not a bad thing. We love that about you.”

“You don’t think it’s weird that I still want him when I was so mad at him like a month ago?”

Alex shakes his head. “You’re allowed to forgive people when they fuck up, Dyl.”

Dylan makes a noise of general agreement and takes a messy bite of his fish taco, making a face when the sauce drips down his chin. Alex hands him an extra napkin to clean up with.

“You know you’re gonna have to tell me what happened with the DTR talk, or Lyndsey will beat me up.”

“Oh.” Dylan takes a few extra moments wiping his face. “We didn’t, uh. Do that. We’ve been a little busy.”

“Dylan.” Alex heaves a tragic sigh.

“What? Neither of us is going anywhere anytime soon. Can I just enjoy this for a little while before I have to do the hard parts?”

“I mean, technically, yes, but you’re an idiot.” The waiter is passing by; Alex catches his attention. “Can we get two more beers here?”

Dylan waits until the waiter has nodded and left again to say, “I’m just trying to be happy. Just because I’m not doing it the way you would doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

“Hey.” Alex lifts both hands, surrender-style. “Sorry. I know you’re not. I just worry about you. I worry about Davo, too.”

“You tell him he’s an idiot?”

“Sometimes.”

Dylan holds Alex’s gaze for a long moment, and then Alex pushes his sunglasses up onto his head and quirks an impish smile, and Dylan can’t help laughing. He can’t be mad at Alex. It’s impossible.

The sun is almost all the way down. The waiter brings their beers, and they toast to nothing in particular, falling easily back into chattering about everything else in the world until the light disappears under the horizon.

They take the Kings all the way to the shootout, but even with their heads out of their asses, it’s not enough. The shootout goes five rounds: Dylan goes second for the Leafs and tucks the puck neatly five-hole, then Alex, the little asshole he is, copies the move exactly to keep LA in the game. John is robbed, but so is Jaret on the other side. Kev, still pointless since he returned, winds up being Toronto’s last shooter, and loses the handle halfway through his dangle, putting the puck wide. Thirty seconds later, Turcotte snaps the game-winner home with ease.

Another point, but a much more frustrating one. They played well today. That’s the kind of game, McFarland says in the locker room after, that they need to be able to put home. That’s the kind of game they need to win to get back to the playoffs.

The team is taking advantage of the two-day break between games to get a good night’s sleep in LA before flying to Denver in the morning, so Dylan gets to grab a late-night dinner with Alex and Lyndsey after the game. Alex pays, because winner buys dinner. Dylan is not in a great mood, but he’d rather be in a bad mood with Alex and Lynds than be in a bad mood alone. Lyndsey shows him all the tiny baby outfits she has saved on Pinterest, which helps. The only downside is that it’s too late to call Connor by the time Dylan gets back to his hotel room, so he has to lie awake thinking about him instead.

Dylan has spent so much of his life lying in bed thinking about Connor, but now it’s all memories instead of daydreams: the way he sighs into a kiss, the warm-wet-rough of his mouth against Dylan’s. The sinew of his body, stretched out on a mattress, and the way he holds on so tightly it bruises. The way he sounds when he comes, and the way he looks after, with his sleepy, sated smile. Dylan didn’t think there were new ways for him to miss Connor, but all of this is new, and there’s a quiet thrill to the way that it aches.

He’s under no illusion that the decisions ahead will be easy. If he wants to have this relationship in public, it’s going to be scrutinized and picked apart and judged and analyzed. It’s never going to be about his feelings; it’s going to be about Connor, and how Dylan fits into the story of his life. It’s going to be about the details that didn’t make it into a book or documentary. It’s going to be framing it for the media, controlling the narrative.

Dylan doesn’t want to hand this story over to other people. They’ll turn it into something that’s not his anymore. They’ll turn Connor into something that’s not his anymore. He just wants to get back to him, and have him to himself as much as possible before they have to figure out what happens next.

That’s a hard thing to do from the road. Over the next couple of days, their schedules keep misaligning just enough that they have to settle for texts and snaps. Of all people, Luke Gazdic is in the GTA for a few days and Connor is all tied up with squeezing in the filming they want from him. Dylan can’t imagine that Connor’s now-retired rookie year roommate has all that much to say that hasn’t been covered — they didn’t even spend a whole season together — but Connor seems happy to have him around, sending snaps of Luke on the interview stool with silly filters on his face, or of the delivery dinners they eat in the studio, staying late to show Luke all the footage they’ve amassed. Dylan wonders if that includes his own interviews. He wonders how harsh he comes off, in that first one, compared to everyone else, and if Connor will explain it away, like, “Oh, it’s okay, that was months ago. He forgave me and now we’re boning down every chance we get.”

Dylan’s schedule, on the other hand, should be relaxing: a mid-morning flight, afternoon shopping in Denver with Nicky and Beecher. A nice steakhouse dinner with half the team, where they make Tanner think he’s gonna have to get the bill until John sneaks to pay it right under his nose. A fairly early bedtime; a focused morning skate; a lazy afternoon until gametime.

But he’s anxious. He’s checking his phone too often, talking himself out of double- and triple-texting. It’s stupid, because he knows why Connor is busy. It’s not like Connor isn’t providing a steady stream of updates. But Dylan misses him. He stretches out on his giant hotel bed, sighing about how empty it is. Alex is right: he is both romantic and pathetic.

Despite all the rest and relaxation, they get their asses handed to them in the Pepsi Center. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, whom Dylan forgets is no longer in Edmonton at least once a week, lights them up for two goals in the first period. Irrationally annoyed, Dylan tries to hit him several times, but the Nuge is a slippery motherfucker, and all Dylan accomplishes is a sore shoulder and some sharp criticism from his coach. Kevin finally gets on the board with a neat tip-in, but his vindication is short-lived when two minutes later Cale Makar nearly dekes him out of his skates on his way to sauce Burakovsky a perfect pass for the third Avalanche goal.

They try to regroup at the second intermission and come out hot, doubling their shots in the first five minutes, but the damage has been done. When they pull Joe for the extra man, Gabe Landeskog nails the empty-netter from center ice, and that’s that. They’re going back to Toronto one point out of a playoff spot.

“Disappointing road trip?” one of the journalists asks Dylan after the game.

“Could have been worse,” Dylan says, raking a hand through his sweaty hair. “We’re not happy, but we’re nowhere near out of it, so we just gotta learn from this one and string together some wins when we get home.”

The bus ride to the airport is somber. Not defeated; more like quietly determined. Dylan is keyed up, opening and closing apps on his phone without doing anything with them. He has a bunch of texts from Ryan about their mom’s birthday that he’ll need to answer when he can concentrate better. Right now, he just wants to seethe for a while. Hole up on the plane and watch game tape until he figures out what he can do better.

By the time they land at Pearson at four in the morning, he is almost deliriously tired. He didn’t sleep on the plane. Tried to, but couldn’t manage more than a few minutes. His eyes are tender and raw even though he changed into his glasses in Colorado. His bones hurt with the need to rest. He shuffles with the guys through the eerily silent parking lot to his car, mumbling something resembling words in response when John calls after him, “See you in a few hours.”

In the car, Dylan lightly slaps his own face a few times to wake up enough to drive. He cranks the engine and the radio. And he drives to Connor’s building.

It’s a bad idea, because street parking sucks, and Dylan has to circle several blocks before he finds a garage to pull into. He leaves his suitcase in the car but hauls his carry-on, conveniently packed with overnight essentials, down to the sidewalk with him. This wasn’t totally premeditated — he didn’t decide for sure until he got off the plane — but he wanted to give himself the option.

The tired-looking doorman at Connor’s building squints with vague recognition when he asks if Dylan would like him to buzz a certain apartment.

“Can you just let me up to Davo’s?” Dylan asks. Then, through a yawn: “Connor’s, sorry. McDavid. Whatever his name is.”

“Sir, I don’t—” the man starts, but then it dawns on him. The lock on the doors clicks open. “Sorry, of course, go on up. Have a good night.”

Later, when he’s not dead on his feet, Dylan will marvel at how easy that was. He and his carry-on roll onto the elevator and do indeed go on up.

It doesn’t occur to him until he’s standing outside Connor’s door without a key that he could have planned this better. After an internal debate, he calls. Seems like less effort than knocking. He has very little effort left in him.

Connor is exceptionally groggy when he answers the phone. “Don’t tell me you’re concussed again.”

“No, but I am standing outside your apartment, and if you don’t come open the door I’m going to sleep on the hallway floor in like five minutes,” Dylan says.

A pause. Then, “Oh, shoot, be right there.”

The line goes dead, but a few seconds later the doorknob rattles, followed by the deadbolt clunking back out of its slot. Connor opens the door, bleary-eyed, tousle-haired, lines from his pillowcase branded pink into one cheek. He’s barefoot in flannel pajama pants and a plain black t-shirt that’s so old there are tiny holes near the collar. Dylan missed him so much that his breath gets caught in his throat and he can’t even get a hello out.

“Hey,” Connor says, then yawns, wide and loud. “Fuck. Come in. How was your flight? Wait, don’t tell me, tell me in the morning.”

Once the door shuts behind them, Connor lets Dylan gather him into a hug. He slides his arms around Dylan’s waist, resting his cheek on Dylan’s shoulder. Dylan kisses his hair and he hums a soft, content noise. He could doze off standing up like this.

“Okay,” Connor says after a moment, holding onto Dylan’s hands as he pulls away. “Bed. Come to bed.”

“Wait,” Dylan says. He tugs Connor back in to kiss him, soft. Not brief. Not quite chaste either. Like a dream, Connor smiles against his lips.

“Hi,” he says. “Welcome home.”

There are precious few hours between the plane landing and the time the team is supposed to shock their bodies back into a normal gameday routine at morning skate, and all of those hours should be spent sleeping. This is one of those hours. Slowly, wearily, painfully, Dylan notes this — notes the gray light seeping in around the curtains and striping Connor’s bedroom, notes that he really shouldn’t be awake, notes the regretful fact that he is awake, and then notes his frigid toes.

Connor has stolen the blankets.

“Dammit, Davo,” Dylan whispers. He rolls over close to the duvet-wrapped lump next to him, gets a good grip on the cover, and yanks the edge free.

“Stromer, what,” Connor mumbles as Dylan tucks himself into Connor’s warmth, pulling the blankets snugly around both of them.

“Greedy,” Dylan says, and presses his feet to Connor’s calf. Connor squeaks, but instead of jerking away, he gathers Dylan closer, tangling their legs together and pressing a half-asleep kiss to Dylan’s brow.

“Sleep,” he says, and goes back to doing just that. As his breathing evens out into a long, slow rhythm, Dylan lets himself be lulled by it, not quite drifting off again, but just drifting, halfway to almost asleep. He’s not fully convinced he’s not in a dream, anyway. If this weren't a dream, his doubts would be creeping in by now: this is going to end badly, because Dylan is overzealous by nature and and Connor is incurably single-minded. Because they don’t have the same goals anymore. Because they'll hurt each other again.

Carefully, Dylan shifts so he can look at Connor. He used to look younger when he slept, but he doesn’t really anymore: the tiny lines around his eyes and the scruff on his jawline have ruined that illusion. Dylan brushes the backs of his fingers over the beginning of his new beard, letting the memory of it rough against his skin send a shiver down his spine. Connor will shave again the next time he films, and Dylan wants to know what it’s like to kiss him clean-shaven.

He wants this to work so badly. It would be too good to be true, but, fuck, he wants it. They're not stupid kids anymore. They're not tied to separate cities, thousands of miles apart. It's so easy to imagine building a life.

Connor sighs, and, without moving or opening his eyes, mumbles, "Didn't I tell you to go to sleep?"

Dylan kisses his forehead and murmurs, "Technically, you didn't say that."

"Mmm." Translation: Well, do it anyway.

Another forehead kiss, softer. Translation: Okay, I'm doing it. Or trying to, at least.

That night, with a rush of vindication in front of a wild Toronto crowd, the Maple Leafs win the damn game. Pittsburgh, in the second wild card spot, has the night off, which means the Leafs are back in a playoff spot for at least twenty-four hours.

The mood in the room is gleeful bordering on manic, and as soon as everyone finishes their media, Nicky yells across the room to Dylan, “Stromer, get dressed, we’re going out!”

They have tomorrow off, a reward for pulling out a decisive win after the long roadtrip. Everyone is exhausted, but there’s something to be said for adrenaline. It’s gonna feel good to let loose.

Dylan texts Connor: _Guys are going out come meet us_. He showers and throws on jeans and the button-down he wore with his suit, then piles into an Uber XL with a bunch of the boys, squashed in the back between Joe and Nicky. Everyone is buzzing, like breaking that playoff barrier let loose a new level of energy they’ve all been sleeping on.

_It’s in yorkville, Nicky swears its lowkey_, he texts, then, _We don’t have to stay long_, and, _We can just hang out in dark corners if u want_. Not that he’s going to do anything stupid in public, but to even joke about it leaves him giddy. He doesn’t want to have to wait several hours before he gets his hands on Connor again.

It takes some wheedling, but Connor agrees to come meet him. Another rush of victory.

The place Nicky brings them to is more bar than club, upscale but still rowdy with a Friday night crowd. They snake through it to the back bar, where Nicky slides some folded bills into the bouncer’s hand to let them into a cordoned-off area that’s half as crowded but no quieter than the rest of the place. He waves to the bartender, a modelesque brunette with a high ponytail, who lifts a pitcher of beer in acknowledgement.

“That for us?” Nicky yells. The bartender grins and winks, and within the minute she’s carrying over a tray with several pitchers, pint glasses, and a round of shots for everyone. They toast to the team before throwing them back, the whiskey burning Dylan’s throat in the best way on its way down. He whoops, the sound lost in the cacophony of his teammates, and takes the overfull beer that Joe hands him, sucking the foam down so it doesn’t spill more.

Maybe it’s overkill. All they did was edge into the lowest possible playoff spot, and by this time tomorrow that might be gone again. But it feels good to let loose.

They’re on their third round of pitchers by the time Connor shows up, which isn’t really that long, considering how fast they go through them. Connor slips into their group so unobtrusively that Dylan doesn’t notice him until there’s a careful hand on his waist, right when he’s in the middle of racing Dima to see who can chug their beer first. The fingers sneak into the ticklish spot on Dylan’s side, and he jerks, sloshing drink on his chin, ready to throw hands before he sees who it is.

“You made it!” he crows, hugging Connor and pressing a sticky kiss to the side of his head. “Hey, hey, someone get Davo a beer. Nick, pour Davo a beer, eh?”

“Jesus, Stromer, mix in a water,” Connor says, fitting himself warmly against Dylan’s side with Dylan’s arm draped around him. He accepts the drink from Nicky, though, taking a long pull. Nicky throws his hands up with a cheer, and other guys join in when they look over to see what the commotion is about. Over at the bar, Kev jumps off his stool, eyes wide; Tanner punches him in the shoulder, laughing and saying something that Dylan can’t hear but, judging from the things Kev’s face does, is clearly a devastating chirp.

“I don’t think I would call this ‘low-key’,” Connor says, ducking his head close to Dylan’s.

“Take it up with Nicky,” Dylan says. His fingers walk along Connor’s collar to stroke the soft hair at the nape of his neck. “Did you watch?”

“Of course I did, and you were very good.”

“Oh, you have to say that,” Dylan says, dropping his voice low, letting his lips graze Connor’s ear.

Connor elbows him in the ribs. “Can you behave?”

“Probably.” Dylan wants to kiss the downturned corner of Connor’s mouth. He wants to kiss him, properly, to drag him into a dark corner and kiss him breathless, to leave his shirt wrinkled and his hair messed up. None of that counts as behaving.

With a sigh, Connor rubs Dylan’s back before freeing himself from Dylan’s arms. “I’m gonna go say hi to Kev before he explodes.”

Connor is gone for about three seconds before Nicky and Beecher sidle up on either side of Dylan, slinging arms across his shoulders with big smiles.

“So how’s it feel to be the only person on planet Earth who can get the McDavid to come hang out like a normal person?” Nicky asks.

“Kev swears he’s good luck,” says Beecher. “So this is good luck, right? Maple Leafs Stanley Cup Champs confirmed.”

“You’re both idiots,” Dylan tells them, and presses his empty pint glass into Nicky’s hand. “Get me another, buddy.”

With a few drinks and a little time, Connor settles into the scene. He sticks close to the team’s hightop table, and close to Dylan when Dylan isn’t being challenged to stupid but very important competitions by his teammates — beer-chugging, arm-wrestling, who can nab a phone number first, the last of which Dylan is great at possibly because he doesn’t care about having the numbers. He just likes winning. Between contests, he cuddles up to Connor, who has gotten caught up in a long conversation with Dima and Mikko about the differences between different nationalities of hockey. It’s the most Dylan has heard him talk about hockey unrelated to his own projects in the entire time he’s been back, so Dylan tries not to interrupt, but he can’t help occasionally sneaking in a nuzzle to his neck or squeeze to his waist, lingering touches in the small of his back, tracing along the waistband of his jeans. Connor, pink-cheeked from drinking, shoots him secret smiles in return and squeezes Dylan’s hand under the table where no one can see.

Dylan is floating. In all of his planning and daydreams, something like this would have still seemed like too much. He’s taking the Toronto Maple Leafs to the playoffs. Connor is here, and Connor is his.

After officiating a drinking contest between Kappy and Liljegren, ordering a water to push into Tanner’s hands, and taking a quick restroom break, Dylan sidles back up to the table next to Connor, who is halfway through a fresh beer and chatting with Joe, now. Connor is fiddling with a bar napkin, shredding it methodically as he talks. Dylan considers rescuing it, but hooks his fingers into Connor’s front pocket instead. Resists the urge to kiss his shoulder. Connor sways into him, just enough for Dylan to feel it.

“So what’s next for you?” Joe is asking, leaning forward on his elbows.

“No idea,” says Connor. He grins, self-deprecating, with a shake of his head. “No fucking idea, man.”

“Staying in Toronto?”

Connor tears off a long strip off his napkin. “I don’t know. Probably not. Too loud and crowded here, you know?”

Joe nods thoughtfully. “I guess you’d want some peace and quiet.”

“Yeah. Something like that. Depends on what I decide to do next. Maybe university?”

“Ohh, you should go to BC,” Joe says, brightening. “I’ll hook you up. You’d love it there.”

Connor squints at him. “Who do you know in British Columbia?”

“Boston College, buddy.” Joe laughs. He lifts his nearly-empty class to clink against Connor’s before downing the last mouthful. “Go Eagles. I’m gonna go get another real quick, you want anything? Stromer?”

“I’m good,” Dylan hears himself say. It feels like he's listening to someone else speak.

“I’m gonna hit the restroom,” Connor says, sneaking his hand into Dylan’s for a quick squeeze. “Be back in a few.”

“For sure.” Dylan’s hand falls limply when Connor lets it go.

_Staying in Toronto? Probably not_.

It feels like he’s been punched in the gut. Dylan goes to the far end of the bar and orders a water. Sipping it, he watches Connor return from the restroom and look around the crowd, brow furrowed. When Joe returns moments later with a fresh drink and Kevin in tow, Connor pulls his stool up and sits, but even as he falls back into conversation, he glances around a few more times before settling in with reluctance.

Kevin flops an arm around Connor’s shoulders for a selfie. Dylan chugs the rest of his water and leaves the glass on the bar.

It’s cold outside. It’s February in Ontario; it’s fucking frigid. Dylan's face and fingers immediately hurt in the wind. He tucks his hands into his armpits and trudges down the block until he finds a little pizza place that’s open. It’s mostly empty and a little greasy, one too many tables crowded into the mostly-deserted dining area. Dylan feels for his wallet and sighs in relief when he finds it.

He’s sitting in the corner by the window, eating a warm slice of pepperoni and drinking a Coke, when his phone starts buzzing.

_Where r u???? _Kev texts, then, seconds later, from Mikko: _Ur children want to know where u went._

Dylan turns the phone face-down. It buzzes again. And again.

_Staying in Toronto? Probably not_.

What a monumental idiot he is. There has never been a bigger idiot in the history of the great nation of Canada. Of course Connor isn’t staying. Of course Connor isn’t going to be there for Dylan to come home to, dutifully watching Dylan’s hockey games, reading on his couch, stealing his clothes. Of course he isn’t. He’s going to be here until he’s done here, and then he’s going to move on.

_Buzz. Buzz. Buzz._

Dylan peels a piece of pepperoni off his pizza and pops it into his mouth. The only other patrons in the restaurant are a younger couple, too wrapped up in gazing into each other’s eyes to give a shit who Dylan is or what he’s doing. Which is good, because he is so drunk and sad that he can’t think straight.

He flips the phone back over. Missed call from Tanner. Text from Connor: _Everything ok?_

Dylan texts back: _Not feeling well. Gonna go home. Sorry_.

He picks off another piece of pepperoni, folds it in half, and eats it. Now that he said it, he does feel a little nauseous. He abandons the pizza to sip his soda instead.

Connor: _??? Let me come with you_

It’s a dick move. Even as drunk as he is, Dylan knows it’s a dick move. But Connor is an adult, and he can call his own ride home if he doesn’t want to keep hanging out with Dylan’s drunk teammates. They can fight about it later. He turns the phone over again and ignores the next slew of buzzes.

When he’s slurping at the bottom of his soda, there’s a knock on the window.

Connor is standing outside, hugging himself against the cold despite his coat and gloves, looking more upset than Dylan has ever seen him. Heaving a sigh, Dylan picks himself up. Pockets his phone. Dumps his cup and plate in the trash.

“You know what I love about this city?” Connor asks as soon as Dylan steps outside. There’s a brittle edge to his voice. “They are obsessed with hockey. Did you know that? So when you’re freaking out that your best friend disappeared you can just search his name on Twitter and, what do you know, there’s someone tweeting, ‘oh em gee, I’m at work and Dylan Strome is totally shitfaced eating pizza in here right now’.”

“I’m not shitfaced.” Dylan clenches his teeth as a shiver shakes through him.

“Where the hell is your coat?” Connor asks.

“Coat check in the bar.”

“Jesus, Dylan.”

“What?” Dylan snaps.

“What do you mean, ‘what’?” The note of panic in Connor’s voice should be a cue for Dylan to ease off. Lighten up. Use your words, Strome. He reaches for an apology and misses, and Connor barrels on. “I went to the restroom and I came back and you were gone. No one knew where you went. You just disappeared.”

Dylan snorts. “Well, I learned from the best.”

Connor looks like he’s been slapped. He opens and closes his mouth twice before he gets a sentence out.

“I don’t know what happened to make you so mad,” he says, the words shaking. “But I’m going home. Come if you want to, Or not. I’m not going to make you.”

Dylan stands in silence, ears and fingertips going numb, while Connor orders a ride on his phone. The sedan pulls up three minutes later. Before he gets in, Connor shrugs out of his coat and tosses it at Dylan, who catches it out of reflex more than anything. Connor holds his gaze for a long moment, his face pinched, his broken heart on his sleeve. Then, without a word, he climbs into the car. Closes the door. Dylan doesn’t watch it disappear around the corner.

Going back into the pizza place is out. Still freezing despite Connor’s coat, he wanders along the sidewalk, stopping in front of open bars or restaurants to try to gauge if anyone inside is going to tweet about what a mess he is if he goes in. Each time, the chance seems too high to take, so he keeps walking. It’s getting late enough that pretty soon the only places that’ll be open are 24-hour fast food, and Dylan doesn’t know this area well enough to know if there are any of those nearby.

He should go home. He doesn’t want to go home. He should go to Connor. He doesn’t want to look at Connor.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

But Connor could have said something. Before they got this deep into — whatever they’re doing, he could have said, hey, I’m not actually planning on sticking around. When I say I don’t want to do this without you, I literally just mean this part. When I say I want you in my life, I don’t mean, like, all the time. Would have been fucking nice to know.

There are so many texts from his teammates he’s going to have to deal with tomorrow.

When his fingers are almost too numb to use, Dylan caves and orders an Uber home. Even sitting in the warm car for ten minutes doesn’t shake the chill from his limbs, and he’s still shivering when he slumps against the side of the elevator as it takes him up to his condo. Half of him — the stupid half — had hoped that he would get here and Connor would be waiting, ready to promise to stay forever. Instead, it’s just Dylan, half-drunk, half-frozen.

In his empty living room, Dylan sits down on the couch without taking the coat off. He leans, letting gravity bring him to rest with his head on the couch arm, and stays there until sleep takes him.

"Dyl, you want another Gatorade?" John asks from the kitchen, where he's finishing cleaning up the remains of the lunch the kids wolfed down before Aryne carted them off to a birthday party. The quiet in their wake is a relief. They’re great kids, but they don’t understand hangovers.

Dylan, stretched out on the couch in the Tavares' living room with his feet propped up on the far arm, groans. "I haven't even finished this one yet."

In every way that it's possible to feel shitty, Dylan feels shitty. He feels physically shitty, because he's hungover. He feels mentally shitty. Emotionally shitty. Spiritually shitty. He is spending the day off on John's couch because being on his own couch (or in his own bed, or just in his apartment in general) makes him feel even shittier. John is sympathetic, to a degree.

"Makes me so glad I have the excuse of being too old to party," John says, reemerging. He ruffles Dylan's hair on his way to drop into his favorite spot in the oversized armchair.

"Pretty sure this is a sign that I'm too old to party," Dylan mutters.

When he woke up that morning, stale-mouthed and too warm, he had hoped it was all a horrible dream. But, no: here was Connor's coat, and Dylan's empty apartment, and thirteen unread text messages. His eyes were like sandpaper. He could smell the stale beer and sweat emanating from him. He still had his shoes on.

Lying there, he mustered every ounce of willpower he had and shot off a few vague apology texts to worried teammates. He hasn't opened the message from Connor. The whole thing is visible in the preview: _Let me know if you want to talk_.

Instead of trying to figure out what to do with that, Dylan hauled his unhappy body off the couch and to the bathroom. He puked, he showered, and he called John to beg refuge and pity. And now he's been laying on John's couch for an hour, nursing his hangover and wallowing. John is being very patient, and, as far as Dylan knows, has only sent Ryan one picture of Dylan being pathetic in his home.

He hasn't cried yet. It's strange. The crying part of him feels numb. He keeps replaying last night in his head, trying to find something to convince himself that it’s not as bad as it seems, but every time, he can only come back to one thing. Connor is leaving.

It’s Dylan’s own fault for not knowing. He never asked. He shouldn’t have assumed.

“So, rough night, eh?” John asks. Dylan drags his hands down his face with a whine, and John laughs. Jerk. “From what I got in the group chats, it looked like it got pretty wild. I had to demand proof of life from Kev and Tanner this morning. They sent me Star Wars memes. I can’t tell if I should be offended.”

“No, it’s because they like you,” Dylan says, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.

“If you say so. The important thing is they’re alive.”

“Mmm.”

“And you even got Connor to come out.”

“Sure did.”

John clears his throat. “And they, uh, lost you at some point?”

No one in this city cares about Dylan’s privacy. “Yeah, I kinda of, uh. Irish goodbye’d, I guess. Hit a wall and decided it was time to go.”

“You look like the wall hit you.”

Dylan snorts. “Thanks.”

John grins, not really sympathetic, but fond nonetheless. “Are you gonna be alive enough to play with Jules when the kids get back? Because she’s been begging me to tell you she wants another shooting lesson and I don’t know if I can hold her off.”

“Oh god.” Dylan groans. Usually, he’d be thrilled to help John’s daughter out, but he suspects it would not be fun in his current condition. “Why can’t you teach her? She knows who you are, right?”

“Yeah, but for some godforsaken reason she thinks you’re cool. I swear it has me questioning my parenting skills.”

Dylan lobs a throw pillow at him.

John is a good guy, though, and texts Aryne, asking her to let him know when she’s headed back so Dylan can gauge if he’s up for activities. If not, he’ll make a strategic retreat. In the meantime, they turn the TV on, because the Lightning and the Penguins are playing a matinee game in Pittsburgh and they both want to root for Ryan for both strategic standings reasons and for brotherhood reasons. It’s a nice afternoon, except for the ever-present gnawing dread in Dylan’s gut and the festering secret knowledge that everything is ruined forever.

At least the Lightning win the game. Their fucking playoff spot is safe for another day.

Dylan feels almost human by the time he heads back to his apartment. Still shitty, but human. Hydrated, at the very least. He stayed at John’s long enough that night is creeping up, dark and icy, by the time he gets back into the city. He shoves his hands deep in his pockets for the short walk through the parking garage to the building, shaking the chill off once he’s inside. He is not looking forward to spending the rest of the evening lying around alone. He’ll have to feed himself at some point. Not looking forward to that either.

Connor is waiting outside his door.

There’s no way to escape, because Dylan doesn’t notice him until he has stepped out of the elevator and the doors are closing behind him. His chest goes seizes with anxiety. Connor, leaning against Dylan’s door, crosses his arms over his chest, chewing the inside of his lip and eyeing Dylan warily.

“I’m guessing the doorman let you up?” Dylan asks. What is even the point of doormen?

“I gave him an autograph.” Connor’s voice is as pinched as his face. He adjusts the strap of the messenger bag on his shoulder. “Can I have my coat back?”

“Yeah, uh.” Dylan clears his throat. “Yeah. Come on.”

It takes too long for Dylan to unlock his front door, fumbling with the keys while Connor stands too close. Inside, Dylan stoops to take his shoes off, trying to give himself a moment to breathe. Connor closes the door behind them but stays by it, crossing his arms again. There’s a small part of Dylan that’s disappointed that Connor has gone cold instead of hot. He should want to fight about this.

The coat is still on the couch, where Dylan woke up and shrugged sweatily out of it that morning. He grabs it and goes back to the foyer, tossing it to Connor.

Connor drapes the coat over his forearms, holding it close to his chest. “I don’t know what I did to make you mad, but I didn’t deserve what you said to me last night.”

“Yeah, well.” Dylan leans against the entryway into the living room, sticking his hands in his pockets. “I don’t deserve for you to up and leave again, so maybe we’re even.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Connor’s voice only cracks a little, but it is horribly satisfying. He should be upset.

“Davo, I was standing right there while you told Joe all about how you’re not staying in Toronto when you’re done with your stupid documentary. You don’t like it here, you know, maybe you’ll go to university instead.” Dylan’s face feels hot, but he pushes through. “Any of that ring a bell?”

“But you already knew that,” Connor says helplessly. “I told you that. The first time you came over, I told you that.”

The memory is vague, but there: Connor levering bottle caps off of beers. Dylan, sitting there, seething for answers. _It’s a little too crowded for me, so probably not for long_. Dylan pushes it away.

“That was months ago.” He’s trying not to sound desperate. It’s not working very well. He thinks he might throw up. “You’re telling me nothing has changed since then? You’re still so sure about it that you’re telling people you barely know about your plans to peace out of here?”

“I don’t _know_, Dylan.” The words burst out of Connor like shattering glass. “I don’t know, okay? People ask me what’s next for me all the fucking time, and I have an answer for it. You think I’m going to share every nuance of my feelings with your drunk teammate? Or that I’m just going to live on your couch waiting for you to get home from hockey games? I don’t know what I’m going to do. But it’s not like you ever asked.”

It’s quite the role reversal, Dylan thinks, to have Connor shouting with tears in his eyes and Dylan, standing there, too numb to even flinch. How stupid could he be, to think that Connor could really be his? Connor is, always, above everything, Connor’s. And that’s fine. It would be selfish to expect him to be different just to make Dylan happy.

“Fine,” Dylan says. He shakes his head. “Whatever. Do what you want.”

“Seriously?” Connor asks. “That’s it?”

“We both know where this conversation is going to end, Davo,” says Dylan. “You’ll get pissed at me for expecting you to not be the way you’ve always been, and I’ll get pissed at you for being pissed at me, and nothing will change. Is there even a point in having it?”

Connor looks like he wants to say more. Like he wants to say a lot more, his jaw clenched and his eyes wild with wounded anger. Instead, he jams a hand into his bag and pulls out a copy of his book. He strides across the foyer, shoving it against Dylan’s chest.

“This is yours,” he says. “Do what you want with it.”

When the door slams behind him, it takes all the oxygen in the room with it. Furious grief hits Dylan like a tidal wave. He looks at the book, the stupid book, the cover blurring through tears, and he flings it across the living room. It thunks against the wall, leaving an ugly mark on the paint, and tumbles to the floor.

Dylan throws himself into hockey. He doesn’t know what else to do. He gets to practice early; he stays in the weight room late. He hung all these fucking hopes and dreams on Connor, the exact stupid thing he knew he shouldn’t do, and he lost sight of what he should have been focusing on: winning his team a championship.

The next few weeks are a roller coaster. The inch up into third in the Atlantic, then get booted back down into the second playoff spot. Up again, down again, still clinging to contention. Dylan hits thirty goals for the third time in his NHL career. He should be thrilled, but all he can think about is how many more he needs to score for it to really mean anything.

He misses Connor. At first, he tried not to think about him, but he has given up on that. It’s impossible. At night, he lies there thinking about how much better his bed felt with Connor in it. About how impossible it felt that he could actually have this. About the way Connor touched him, full of promises.

But the important thing is that he separates his wallowing from his training. On the ice, around the boys, he needs to be on. He can be miserable at home.

Tampa Bay comes to town on a Wednesday in late February. Dylan has been counting the hours until Ryan can come see him. He needs a fucking hug. They both have practice in the morning, Dylan out at the Ford Centre and Ryan at Scotiabank, but Dylan finishes first, so he’s home when Ryan walks over from the arena.

“Now that’s not a bad commute,” he says as Dylan lets him into the apartment, going up on his toes to pull Dylan into a bear hug before he even takes his coat off. Dylan clings, and Ryan makes a soft noise of surprise, wrapping him up even tighter. “Hey, kiddo, I missed you, too.”

Ryan doesn’t know what happened. No one knows what happened besides Dylan and Connor, unless Connor has told anyone, which Dylan strongly doubts.

“I talked with Mom and Dad on the walk over,” Ryan says as he shrugs out of his outerwear, warmly talkative. “They’re down with that steakhouse again tomorrow. Winner buys dinner, obviously. Mom wants to try to FaceTime Matt while we’re all together.”

“Sure,” says Dylan. “You’re welcome in advance for dinner, by the way.”

Ryan sticks his tongue out.

They order lunch and hang out in the kitchen chatting, mostly about Ryan’s kids, but also about their teams, about Matt, about mutual friends. Tampa played in Buffalo before Toronto, so Ryan brings well-wishes from Mikey McLeod, and a bruised foot from blocking Mikey’s slapshot. He’s limping a little on it, but he swears it’s fine once it’s laced up in a skate boot.

Sydney calls when they’re finishing up eating, having just picked a feverish Chrissie up from preschool and hoping Ryan is free to video chat while Sydney drives to make the miserable girl a little less miserable. She was asking for her daddy, Syd says. Obviously Ryan and Dylan both jump to the task, and their next twenty minutes are filled with making up a story about a hockey-playing princess to keep Chrissie entertained, complete with playacting and voices. It’s a welcome distraction, and Dylan even finds himself giggling at Ryan’s more dramatic acting.

When Sydney gets to the house, after they have befriended the dragon and saved the kingdom, and after they exchange a million I-love-yous and hang up, Ryan grins at Dylan.

“That was good,” he says. “We’ll have to recruit you for bedtime stories this summer.”

Dylan lifts his chin, proud. “You better. I’m a natural.”

“Of course you are.” Ryan slugs him in the shoulder. “‘Chel?”

“Restroom break, then ‘Chel.”

This plan is approved unanimously. Dylan goes to the restroom, taking a moment to examine himself in the mirror. He always looks tired, but it’s been worse lately. Sleeping has been harder lately. He’s sure Ryan can tell, but he hopes he doesn’t bring it up. Dylan just wants to have a nice afternoon with his big brother.

When he comes back to the living room, Ryan is standing by the far wall, leafing through Connor’s book with a frown.

“What are you doing?” Dylan asks. Ryan startles.

“Sorry,” he says quickly. “It was on the floor so I just — Sorry. I wasn’t trying to snoop, Dyl, I promise.”

“Just put it on the shelf,” Dylan says with a sigh. “It’s not snooping, the whole country has read it anyway.”

Ryan gives him an odd look. “I don’t think the whole country has read your personalized annotated version, but sure, back on the shelf.”

Dylan’s stomach drops.

“What?” he asks.

Ryan pauses with the book halfway slotted between two others. “What are you what-ing me about?”

“What you said.” Dylan is having trouble putting words together. He stammers, and manages, “Annotated?”

There’s a long moment when Ryan just looks at him, and then he says, as grave as Dylan has ever heard him, “Oh, buddy.”

He brings the book to Dylan. Places it, open, in Dylan’s hands. The words stare up at him:

> _For Mom, Dad, and Cam, for always being there, especially now.  
_ _And for the other half of me, who deserved better._

Nothing Dylan hasn’t read a hundred times. Except the lower line is underlined in pen, and under that, in Connor’s lopsided, boyish handwriting: _I feel like you never realized that’s you. And you’re right. I left a lot of stuff out._

There’s more. There’s so much more. Spilling through the margins, crammed between paragraphs. Sitting weak-kneed on the couch, Dylan turns the pages, barely absorbing any of it. He might have stayed like that indefinitely had Ryan not sat down next to him, touching his shoulder, shocking him back to the real world.

“I’m gonna go call Syd,” he says. “See how Chrissie’s doing.” Drops a kiss on Dylan’s head before he steps out on the balcony, pulling the curtain and the door shut behind him.

Dylan looks at the book with dread curdling in his gut.

The first chunk of the book, the pre-Erie section, is free of graffiti, so Dylan turns to the section where their story begins. There, along the left margin, next to the first place Dylan is mentioned: _The way you smiled at me the first time I saw you in Erie filled me with relief. Isn’t that strange? Relief. Somehow I knew from the first moment that you were someone I would always be able to lean on._

A few pages later, squeezed onto the bottom of a page about how great the Otters’ winning season was after the shitty one Connor’s rookie year: _My favorite memory from this season: the first time I spent the night at your billet house, and you made me hang out with you while you skyped your brother, and you told him I was your best friend. It was the first time you called me that._

Later, next to the paragraph about staying up all night with Dylan, talking about their futures: _This part was so hard to write. I wanted this book to be true, but I couldn’t write about much easier I slept with you next to me. Or about how I would lie there in the dark dying for you to touch me. I thought I might not care if people knew that about me, but I couldn’t throw you into that spotlight. Did you have any idea how scared I was? I knew it wasn’t something I could have. Not with the dreams I was chasing. But I wanted so much._

Next to the draft lottery, a single sentence: _I started missing you right away and I don’t think I’ve ever stopped_.

His eyes prickling with tears, Dylan flips through the pages so fast he nearly rips one to get to the picture from Worlds. The pair of them framed by the joy of the celebration, holding on to one another, Dylan’s lips pressed to Connor’s forehead.

Connor had switched to sharpie to write on the glossy photo paper: _This was the moment I realized how long I’d been in love with you_.

Dylan doubles over with a hoarse sob, covering his face with his hands. He digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying and failing to control the swell of grief inside him. His breath comes in gasps, loud and ragged, and his hopes that Ryan can’t hear are dashed within moments when Ryan slips back inside, hurrying to his side. The book slides off of Dylan’s knees to the floor, falling open to yet another page with writing scrawled in the margins.

“Hey,” Ryan says, rubbing Dylan’s shoulders. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. I’ve got you.”

“It’s not.” Dylan can hear how awful he sounds, hopeless and pathetic. “It’s not okay. Fuck.”

Ryan smooths his fingers through Dylan’s hair, his voice soft, like when one of his children is upset. Like when Dylan would get upset as a kid. He bends awkwardly to rescue the book, closing it and setting it on the coffee table. “Just breathe, okay?”

“I don’t know what to do,” Dylan moans. His face is all wet. Does any of this even change anything? It doesn’t change that Connor is probably leaving, and it doesn’t change the way Dylan treated him for it. What does this even tell him, except that he and Connor have been holding things back from each other since the very beginning?

That Connor is in love with him. Not just loves him. In love. Or was, at least. Would he hand the book over, with all his confessions written into it, if he wasn’t still? Does it even matter? Love alone isn’t enough. Dylan has known that for a long time.

“Dyl,” Ryan says gently. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Dylan sniffles loudly. “You’re gonna think I’m so stupid.”

“I’m not.”

“I’m so stupid.” Dylan scrubs his cheeks with his hands. “Fuck.”

“You’re not.” Ryan squeezes him, then reaches for the book again, opening it up to the dedication page. “When is this from?”

The story spills out of him. Connor showing up at his door, straight from the airport. Dylan’s ascent to cloud nine, and his crash back to Earth. The drunken argument outside the pizza place, and then the sober one, in this apartment, ending with Connor pushing the book into Dylan’s hands and Dylan flinging it away, leaving it where it fell for weeks.

The memory of Connor, bundled up on Dylan’s couch, meticulously writing in that same book, never came to him, the same way the memory of Connor telling him that he didn’t want to stay in Toronto, less than a week after they were reunited never came to him, even though in retrospect both are crystal clear. Maybe he just hasn’t been paying enough attention. All the shit he’s given Connor for being self-absorbed, and Dylan didn’t even process the things that were laid out right in front of him.

“I’m an idiot,” he says miserably, scrubbing half-dried tears from his cheeks. “I should have just fucking listened.”

Ryan sighs. He’s rubbing Dylan’s back in soothing circles, which is maybe the only thing keeping Dylan from completely melting down again. “You need to stop saying that. And you need to talk to him. You’re not going to be able to move on from this until you do, whether it fixes things or doesn’t.”

Dylan closes his eyes as a fresh wave of dread washes over him.

“But what if it doesn’t?” he asks, his voice cracking.

“I don’t know, Dyl. Come here.” He tugs Dylan into a hug, gathering the awkward folds of Dylan’s limbs halfway into his lap. Sniffling, Dylan wonders how anyone could ever credit him with being a good leader when every ounce of steadiness he has comes from Ryan. His loyalty, from his parents. His bravery, from Connor. None of it is his alone. Him alone is just — alone.

Ryan kisses the top of his head. “Cut yourself a break and just think about it for a few days, okay? You’ll figure out what to do.”

> I keep expecting to miss it. It hasn’t happened yet. I miss people and I miss places, but I don’t miss the game. At least not the version I was playing right before I quit. I’ve heard older guys say sometimes that they knew when to retire because their bodies told them to. “I woke up and I knew I was done,” is what they always say. I never thought I’d understand that.
> 
> Well, I woke up and I knew I was done. And I hope one day I’ll wake up and know what I’m supposed to do next.

It takes Dylan a few days just to get through everything in the book. He goes through it several times to make sure he doesn’t miss anything, and then goes through it again because he’s addicted to the way it makes him ache inside. He wonders, more than once, if that’s all this is — his own inability to let go of a hurt so familiar it’s become a part of him. But then he reads another one of Connor’s notes and thinks about the way Connor kissed him and is filled with horrible hope all over again.

Ryan was right: he’s not going to be able to move on either way without talking to Connor.

The question is whether Connor wants to talk to him, after the things Dylan said to him. After the way Dylan folded so quickly at the first sign of trouble.

He brings the book with him on the next roadtrip — just one quick game in Boston. He doesn’t dare get it out on the plane or the bus, but he leafs through it again in his hotel room, running his fingers over Connor’s handwriting, feeling the grooves where the pen dug into the paper. Dylan wonders if he planned, carefully choosing what to ink into the margins of his already carefully-worded book, or if he just wrote whatever came to mind, whenever it came to mind. If he wrote it all at once, maybe over the course of a couple of sleepless nights, or if it’s a labor of weeks, of coming back to it over and over with a fresh memory to excise into the pages.

Dylan misses him. That is the theme, through the entire last decade of their lives: when he’s not there, Dylan misses him.

He’s thinking about this the next morning as he winds down from morning skate. Sitting in his stall, he is thinking about how Connor told him once that he hated how much he liked the Garden, because the Bruins were such a pain in the ass to play against, and he never wanted to give them the satisfaction of liking their arena. Anticipating the tough game ahead of his own team tonight, Dylan is thinking the same thing. The facilities are so nice. The Bruins are so not. He misses Connor.

When it comes time for pregame interviews, Dylan isn’t tapped for a scrum, which is fine. He’s tapped more often than a lot of guys because he’s good at talking, but it’s kind of nice when he has a morning off from the media. He sits in his visitor’s stall and watches Morgan intone solemnly about how they are staying focused on winning each game one shift at a time, because the standings are still tight and every point matters.The reporters clustered around him are all the familiar faces of Toronto hockey media, and a single woman from the Boston beat, none of them looking too inspired by the rote answer. Not that another player would have said anything much different. Dylan would probably say the same thing, just taking about eight more sentences to do it.

It feels like a lifetime ago that same scrum was bugging him almost daily about whether or not he’d picked up the shiny new McDavid memoir. He can’t imagine not holding the entire story in his heart, now.

“Liv,” Dylan says when the group starts to disperse. Olivia, the reporter from the _Globe_ that Dylan likes, shoots him a smile and a wait-one-second gesture while she finishes typing something on her phone before crossing over to him.

“What’s up?” she asks, pushing her long, dark braid back over her shoulder. “I promise Morgan only said nice things about you.”

“Mo has only said nice things his whole life,” Dylan says, earning a wider, amused smile. He barrels on while he has the goodwill: “I was just wondering. You read the McDavid book, right?”

“I think I would have been fired if I hadn’t,” Olivia says. She’s joking, probably.

“What did you think of it?”

Her expression turns thoughtful, and she takes a moment, drumming her fingers on the back of her phone case.

“I thought it was good,” she says. “It didn’t feel like it had been easy to write, so I had to respect that. And like everyone said, it was really honest, even though he was clearly holding back in some places.” She laughs, shaking her head. “I say that like I know the guy, which is probably annoying as hell to people like you, right? But I thought it was really brave. This sport isn’t always nice when people aren’t what it wants them to be.”

“Yeah, for sure.” Dylan rolls his shoulders, cracks his neck. Casually. Olivia’s eyes narrow with discerning curiosity.

“Is there a reason you wanted my literary review?” she asks.

Dylan shrugs. So, so casually. Most of the media members have filtered out of the room, and the guys are milling around, getting changed for video review. John is unsubtly eavesdropping from a few stalls away, but the wonder twins are thankfully distracted. “You guys kept asking if I’d read it back when it first came out. Thought it was fair to turn the tables now that I have.”

She laughs, pleased in a surprised sort of way. “Does that mean you’ll give me your own official review?”

“Only if you promise not to tell, uh, what’s his face. From the _Star_.” Dylan musters up a winning smile.

The face Olivia makes — wide eyes, raised eyebrows, lips pressed together in a line — says she knows exactly who Dylan means. “That guy.”

“That guy,” he confirms. She shakes her head with a chuckle.

“Okay, great. I’ll hit you up when we get back to Toronto and we can chat about it,” she says. They seal the deal with a fist-bump and, once she leaves, Dylan slumps back into his stall with a long sigh.

“Interesting,” John says. He doesn’t look up from the sneaker he’s lacing, but somehow it’s very clear that he’s talking to Dylan. “Very interesting.”

“Shut up, Jedi Master,” Dylan says, and hauls himself up to hit the shower.

Somehow, in the past couple of minutes, a plan has solidified in his head. Is it a plan that’s going to work? No fucking clue. But it’s a plan. It’s knowing what he wants to do, and it feels like it’s been eons since he felt that way. A massive weight has been lifted from his shoulders just by virtue of knowing what he wants to do.

But first: the Bruins. He has a game to play.

It’s a short flight from Boston to Toronto, so they land back home bright and early at just past two o’clock in the morning. Most of the team is still buzzing from the adrenaline of their overtime win — John with a sick snipe in the extra time, continuing his campaign to make his retirement plans way more difficult than he was counting on. Dylan, along with the rest of the GTA, is extremely looking forward to goading him into a new contract over the summer.

The night is cold but the sky is clear, and Dylan once again drives to Connor’s building. He had debated: what would a few more hours be, getting some sleep at home, refraining from waking Connor up in the middle of the night and waiting until the morning to have this conversation? A few hours too many is what that would be. He already feels like he’s going to climb out of his skin from nerves. He couldn’t sleep if he tried.

He knows the best garage now, at least. He doesn’t bring a suitcase. He stands on the sidewalk to the side of the building’s gilded awning and, looking up at the rows and rows of dark windows above him, calls Connor.

“It is two thirty in the morning,” is how Connor answers the phone. The edge to his voice is exhausted.

“Yeah, well, I just got back from Boston, so blame the plane,” Dylan says. He is trying so hard not to let his voice shake. His hands are a lost cause already. His heart is racing like he’s still on the ice. “I didn’t want to chance it with the doorman in case you gave him a hit list but I’d really appreciate it if you let me up.”

A long, long silence.

Connor, resigned: “Fine, just give me like thirty seconds to tell him to send you up.”

Dylan gives him twenty. The doorman waves him through with a tired smile, and he spends the elevator ride up taking deep breaths, rehearsing in his head. He’s been rehearsing since they left the Garden. He’s still not sure if he has the right words, but what he has are better than no words at all.

Connor answers the door in his pajamas, rubbing wearily at his eyes. The space he leaves between them when he lets Dylan in is maybe worse than the wary look he gives him. Dylan knew how wounded Connor was when he decided to twist the knife. He deserves the cool welcome, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make his chest hurt.

The door closes, and they’re standing in Connor’s foyer, looking at each other. Connor’s arms are crossed, his shoulders squared. It’s not Erie, and it’s not Helsinki; they’re not teenagers or champions. They might not even be friends. But they’re here, and Dylan can’t walk away without knowing he tried.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I love you, and I want you in my life.”

Connor’s fortress cracks but does not crumble.

“You didn’t a couple weeks ago,” he says.

“Yes, I did,” Dylan says. He takes a deep breath, squeezes his own fingers for something to hold on to. Something tangible. The wild hope he’s clinging to does nothing to steady the ground beneath his feet. “I did, and I was so fucking scared you were going to leave that I thought the only thing I could do was to leave you first. It was so, so stupid, and I am so sorry.”

Connor opens his mouth, then closes it. He starts to bite his lip, but stops, sucking it into his mouth instead. There’s a scab on it, just left of center, like he’s recently chewed right through it. When he does speak, his voice is balanced on eggshells.

“Dylan, I can’t do this if you’re only going to forgive me halfway.” A wobble, a catch. A careful re-balancing. “I’ve tried so many ways to show you that I’m here now. I can’t spend my whole life proving it to you. I don’t deserve that.”

“You’re right.” Dylan steps forward, halving the space between them. He wants to reach out so badly. “That’s what I’m trying to say. I love you and I want you in my life.”

“Dylan—”

“Davo.” A breath, too sharp to be shaky. Another step, the distance halved again. Centimeters, now. “I’ve been in love with you for almost half my life. Believe me when I say all I want is to make this work. And I know it’s going to be work. I know that. But it’s worth it not to miss you.”

“Dylan, stop.”

Dylan stops. They both stop. The whole world stops, probably — the sleeping families above and below them, frozen between dreams; the doorman downstairs, suspended between pages of his paperback; the late-night taxis roaming the streets, paused like a video game. But then: Connor’s hand sliding into his. Unfreeze. Dylan’s eyes are wet.

“We’re gonna have to talk about it,” Connor says. He looks like he might cry. “Okay? Face-to-face. I’m not writing another book, and you can’t wait to call me until you’re high on a brain injury. We talk about it. Because I love you, and I want you in my life.”

Dylan nods, swallowing hard. When he blinks, a tear escapes, and he swipes it away with his free hand.

“We can do that,” he says, his voice rough.

“Okay,” Connor says, “Okay.” He cups Dylan’s face and kisses him — once, twice, lingering. Dylan sighs into it, weak with relief. It’s so easy to find the places where his hands belong on Connor’s waist, so easy to pull him just a little bit closer. When the kiss ends, they stay like that, close, the tip of Connor’s nose still nudging Dylan’s. His breath is warm on Dylan’s lips, and Dylan thinks, maybe, sometimes home isn’t a place. Sometimes, it's a person. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, it’s a person who refuses to let you go.

Close enough to feel, Connor whispers, “So what now?”

Dylan kisses him, soft, and says, “I was thinking we could stay up all night talking about the future.”

***

It is a chilly, gray early spring morning in April when Dylan’s alarm goes off at the crack of dawn. One half of him, pressed against Connor under the blankets, is toasty warm; the other half, barely covered by the edge of the duvet he’s managed to hold hostage, is freezing. He sighs, reaching for his phone to snooze it, and turns to press his cold half to Connor’s furnace of a body instead. Connor grumbles something incoherent and hooks a leg over him, which helps.

Dylan tucks his face against Connor’s shoulder and mumbles, “I’m waking us back up in ten minutes. You’re the one who wanted as early as possible.”

“And you listened to me?” Connor asks, but moments later his breathing is slow and even again. Dylan attempts to follow suit, but doesn’t quite get there, drifting on the edge of consciousness.

When they had crawled into bed together that night after Boston, yawning, knees bumping, feet tucked between ankles, curved together like a set of closed parentheses to talk about things that are easier to talk about in the dark, Dylan had asked, quietly, carefully, “If I promise not to freak out can you tell me if you’re leaving Toronto?”

“No,” Connor said, just as quiet, just as careful. “Because I don’t know. I have no idea what to do next.”

“If I asked you to stay,” Dylan asked, with his heart in his throat, “would that make you stay?”

“I don’t know,” Connor said, “but if it didn’t, it would make me not leave for long.”

When the alarm jars them awake again, Dylan presses a kiss to Connor’s grumpy face and steals away to the bathroom before Connor truly wakes up and takes over the sink for his morning routine. Dylan washes his face with cold water to wake himself up, brushes his teeth, pops in his contacts, takes a piss. He’s squinting into the mirror and picking at a zit on his forehead, right along the line where his helmet sits, when Connor shuffles in, foregoing the toiletries to tuck himself against Dylan from behind, wrapping his arms around Dylan’s waist and pressing his sleepy face into Dylan’s neck.

“Good morning,” he murmurs, slightly muffled. Dylan leans back into him, twisting to kiss his temple.

“I’ll make coffee?” he says.

“Yes, please.”

Later today, _The Next Next One: A TSN Special Feature_ will be broadcast across the country at primetime. The studio had tried to convince Connor to make a bigger deal of the premiere, with a big event or an exclusive screening, but Connor and Dylan aren’t even planning on watching it. Connor is ready to be finished with it. He has pored over video clips and interviews, spending long days and late nights at the studio with Bill and Elijah. He has painstakingly crafted the story he wants to tell — the good parts, the bad parts, the unflinchingly true parts. He brought the final version home to Dylan a month ago and they watched it curled up on the couch together. They both cried a little. Okay, mostly Dylan. And maybe he cried a lot.

It’s in everyone else’s hands now. They can think what they want, Connor keeps saying. He’s done with it, and he’s moving on.

In the dark, Dylan had asked, “Do you miss it at all? Playing the game?”

Connor sighed, a sound with the weight of the world in it. He turned their twined hands over so the back of Dylan’s was against the bed and smoothed their fingers out until they were palm to palm.

“I do miss it,” he said. “But I don’t want to go back to it. It’s confusing sometimes.”

“I wouldn’t know what to do with myself,” Dylan said.

“You think I do?” A wry curl. A tiny smile. “I quit hockey, and then wrote a book about hockey. And then made a documentary about hockey. I don’t know how to do anything else. I haven’t even skated since that last game and it’s still all I think about.”

Dylan tugged Connor’s hand over to kiss the back of it. Held it against his lips, thinking about how many people valued those hands for what they could do for a game they will probably never play again.

“What I miss,” Connor said, wistful, a little distant. “What I miss is — you know the moments when everything clicks and you don’t even have to think about what to do because your body takes over? And it doesn’t matter who’s in front of you or what’s between you and the goal because in that moment everything is crystal clear?”

“You miss the flying,” Dylan said.

“Yeah,” Connor said, with a sad little smile. “I miss the flying.”

After the playoffs, whenever they end for Dylan and the Maple Leafs, whether it’s in jubilation or defeat, the two of them are going away. Two weeks in Europe. No hockey. Not even any countries that care too strongly about hockey. Connor has an itinerary, and Dylan will let him do whatever he wants as long as Dylan is invited.

They need the time, Dylan thinks. To be together outside of the parameters of their daily lives. Connor still doesn’t know what he’s going to do next, and Dylan made him promise not to think too hard about it until after the trip. Connor’s therapist thought that was a great idea. Dylan has rarely felt so validated.

He makes coffee, sticking two of the bagels Connor got when he was in Montreal a few days ago into the toaster. From the bathroom, the hum of Connor’s electric razor filters faintly down the hallway. Since he finished filming, he has kept the beard, keeping it trimmed short and neat. It’s a little weird, he told Dylan a few weeks ago as he shaved, not biding his time between the days when he has to care how people will look at him.

“Are you saying you don’t care if I think you’re hot?” Dylan had asked, earning himself a laugh and an eye roll and, later, a generous amount of brutal beard burn.

This has been their past couple months: time together when they have it, when Dylan isn’t on the road, when Connor isn’t taking off to do book signings in cities his PR lady has strategically chosen for maximum impact. It took weeks for Dylan to stop feeling a little bit desperate whenever one of them came home, as if they needed to squeeze as much as possible out of the days that they had before the next trip, just in case things fell apart while they weren’t within an arms’ reach of each other. That feeling still bubbles up sometimes, stubborn and ugly, but there is no rotten space in Dylan’s heart for it to take root anymore.

They eat breakfast with the sun just beginning to slant through Dylan’s windows, quiet and comfortable. The lines of Connor’s body are nervous. Dylan is nervous, too, but he won’t let it show. Not this morning.

It is cold enough in the parking garage, before the heat of the day has had a chance to chase away the lingering frost, that they can see their breath when they walk to Dylan’s car. As Dylan steers them out to the street, Connor fiddles with the radio for a moment, then gives up on finding something that’s not endless chatter and grabs Dylan’s phone to connect his bluetooth instead. The drive to the Leafs’ practice facility is even shorter than usual this early in the morning. They don’t talk much, but halfway there, Dylan reaches across the center console for Connor’s hand and holds onto it for the rest of the way.

This had taken some strategic work on Dylan’s part. They will get to the Ford Centre while the only person there is the facilities manager, who will let them in and then go back to his office, where he likes to spend the early hours sorting through emails and maintenance tickets before anyone else comes in to bother him. He’ll have the lights on for them, the building empty, the ice ready.

“I don’t want anyone to think I’m going to play again,” Connor kept saying, when they talked about this, a point of contention more between him and himself than between him and Dylan. This wasn’t a point Dylan was going to push. It was just a point that came up, naturally, throughout the course of their days and nights together. Connor was done. Dylan believed him. But the question central to everything Connor has been doing since he hung up his skates remained: how do you take something the world has claimed as their own, and turn it back into something that belongs to you?

Thus: the early morning. The facilities manager, sworn to secrecy. No sticks, no pads, no gloves, just two pairs of skates — the pair that Dylan wears every day, and the pair that has been sitting untouched in Connor’s parents’ garage for almost two years now. Connor is wearing the team hoodie that is basically his with how rarely Dylan gets to wear it — not that Dylan minds. He likes seeing the blue embroidered _#17_ over Connor’s heart. Besides, he’ll get a new one next year. And he’s thinking of changing his number. There’s no one on the team right now wearing 97, and he feels like maybe there should be.

They have a list, pinned to Connor’s refrigerator with a magnet shaped like an otter. Dylan bought it on impulse, from a kitschy souvenir shop in Seattle when the Leafs had their trip out there, for the express purpose of holding said list. Before that, Connor had it taped to the fridge, which was just embarrassing. The list started as a therapy exercise, and now, for the time being at least, it’s a tangible guide for moving forward: Who do they want to tell, and when do they want to tell them? What decisions do they have to make, and when do they have to make them by? They’re mostly coasting right now, riding out the end of Dylan’s season and Connor’s work on the documentary, putting the big things off until after their trip, but the list means that they have an eye on the future. That they’re talking about it. That they have a plan to build a life.

Their parents know. Their siblings. John and Alex. To Dylan’s slight chagrin, the Nuge and Draisaitl, because Dylan wandered into the background while Connor was video chatting with them. But it’s fine. Anyone else can wait until they’re ready.

The rink is eerily quiet as they sit on the home bench to lace up their skates. The building feels huge without the chatter of teammates and coaches to fill it up, every noise echoing up to the rafters. Should have asked if they could have music, maybe. Too late now.

Connor’s skates are stiff, and he unlaces and re-laces them twice, practiced hands flying through the motions, before he’s satisfied.

“I don’t want it to have to mean anything,” he had said, sitting on Dylan’s couch with his feet tucked under him, his hands wrapped around a giant mug of coffee, and again in the car on the way to Richmond Hill, and again, last night, agonizing over the decision one last time. “I just don’t want that last game to be the last time I touched the ice.”

They were lying in bed together. Dylan gathered Connor’s hands to him, touching a kiss to each of his wrists.

“It can mean whatever you want it to mean,” he promised.

Not that first night, but the morning after — after talking until the sun came up, after a few more tears and a few hours of sleep — Dylan had asked, “Would it be okay if I talked to the _Globe_ about reading your book?”

Dylan just thought he deserved to have someone who loves him on the record about it. Someone to say that people who call him a quitter don’t understand what it means to be brave. That the measure of him as a person is so much more important than the measure of him as a hockey player.

He didn’t tell them everything, of course. There are still some things they get to keep for themselves.

The ice spills out before them, an infinite untouched plane of perfect glass. The kind of ice that makes Dylan itch to carve it up, but he waits. It’s not his moment. Connor lets out a long breath, shaking himself, before stepping out. Pushing off. His blades cut long, smooth arcs into the ice. His body remembers.

After a long loop, he comes back to Dylan, snowplowing to a slow stop.

“Come on, Stromer, I’m not doing this alone,” he says, holding out his hand.

Dylan takes it, lacing their fingers together as he steps out. Connor squeezes tight, digs a blade into the ice, and together, they fly.


End file.
